


take me as I am

by Judeyjude, Shira_a



Series: of sleep demons and humans [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: ADHD James Potter, Agender Lily Evans, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Asexual Character, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Bipolar Disorder, Bipolar with Psychosis Remus, Demons, Depression, Domestic, Domestic Fluff, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, Fantasy, First Kiss, Fluff and Humor, Friends to Lovers, Hallucinations, How to Be a Human 101, Humor, Light Angst, M/M, Memes, Oblivious Sirius Black, Sleep Demon Lily, Sleep Demon Sirius, Slow Burn, Supernatural Elements, aro/ace spectrum Sirius, rated M for Sirius' dumb ass wanting to know Why Humans Do This and asking sexual questions, so many memes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-14
Updated: 2018-08-14
Packaged: 2019-06-27 00:48:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 48,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15674655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Judeyjude/pseuds/Judeyjude, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shira_a/pseuds/Shira_a
Summary: Sirius is a sleep demon who gives nightmares to humans. Remus is an insomniac with hallucinations.Unstoppable force, meet Immovable object.☽☽☽“No!” Sirius smacked the plastic cup filled with stale cereal out of his punished human’s hand. He responded a touch more dramatically this time to Sirius’ sudden physical appearance, though it was mostly due to the fact that his food now covered the floor. “Eat some real food and go to sleep!” Sirius’ skin prickled with a thousand fiery needles—release, release, release.“My Cheerios,” his punished human mumbled, eyes glued to the ground forlornly.“How can you even be functioning on this little sleep?” Sirius’ voice pitched higher and higher as he spoke. He wondered if he was capable of yanking his fake human hair out.





	1. go the fuck to sleep (October)

**Author's Note:**

> This has been a wild ride! I'd like to give an enormous thanks to my wonderful and extremely talented artist Shira_a (see their work on chap 5, 11, & 12!) who has been a big support. I couldn't have done it without her. <3
> 
> And thank you to the Wolfstar Big Bang for organizing all of this and doing all the work to pull this magical fest together!

  ** _October_**

 

"Dude!” Sirius burst into visibility with so much intensity, a light bulb exploded in the next room. “You need to get some sleep, for fuck's sake! Like, _shit,_ man."

 

Sirius’ punished human just stared at him. “Um.” He licked his chapped lips, stared thoughtfully at Sirius for a few minutes. He proceeded shoveling congealed noodles out of a white box and into his mouth. Days ago, a stranger brought the white box to the front door. “Thanks,” the punished human finally finished his thought, talking around the food.

 

Sirius nearly lost his visible form, barely regaining control. He spluttered. “Thanks?”

 

His punished human raised his eyebrows, taunting. “Thank you and goodbye,” he said, not unkindly.

 

“You’re not even going to threaten to call the police?” Sirius demanded. “Do you have any fucking self-preservation?”

 

“No, and not really,” his punished human said, setting his food box down and shifting his computer on the coffee table. Loud laughter crackled from within and after some clicking and a _tap tap tap_ sound, the noise-level raised. He spared no glances for Sirius, listening to the voices from inside his computer, probably from that website he visited too often—Net-something.

 

Softly, Sirius muttered to himself, “What the fuck?”

 

“Want to watch with me?” His punished human absentmindedly patted the couch space beside him. “Do something. You’re making me anxious just standing there.”

 

Well, good to finally know his punished human had some qualms about a stranger appearing from thin air into his apartment, even if he didn’t show it. Unsure of what to do, Sirius joined him on the green couch that he normally invisibly haunted over. It was surprisingly cushiony when sitting on it in human form—Sirius greatly approved. He sank back into the pillows, running his hand over the soft corduroy material, still warm where his punished human’s legs had been propped up minutes prior.

 

“You’re more handsome than the others.”

 

All Dark demons naturally transformed gorgeous in any human form, unfailingly alluring. Just another annoyance that came with Sirius’ existence and why he rarely chose to be human. He loved being beautiful, but liking the purpose for it? Less so. “What do you mean ‘the others’?” Sirius asked.

 

“The other hallucinations,” his punished human said. One of the small people inside the computer demanded the other small person give them coffee and his punished human chuckled, his voice higher than Sirius expected.

 

“I’m not a hallucination.”

 

“Fine, then another one of the shadowy figures I see in the corners of my eyes sometimes. You know, imaginary.”

 

“I’m not imaginary!”

 

“Okay.”

 

“I’m not!”

 

“I said,” his punished human spoke plainly, “okay.”

 

“Can you just stop and go the fuck to sleep?”

 

His punished human puffed out a hysterical breath. “What, take my sleep meds and become too drugged out to defend myself from you?”

 

“I thought I was imaginary,” Sirius shot back, less bitter and more curious than earlier.

 

Raising a tense shoulder and dropping it, his punished human offered no reply. It didn’t make any sense and it made Sirius feel weird things in his stomach—human forms brought on so many annoying emotions. So Sirius faded away, not wanting to cause any more distress.

 

He could last another night with scorching energy scratching at him to be released.

 

Probably.

 

☽☽☽

 

“No!” Sirius smacked the plastic cup filled with stale cereal out of his punished human’s hand. He responded a touch more dramatically this time to Sirius’ sudden physical appearance, though it was mostly due to the fact that his food now covered the floor. “Eat some real food and _go to sleep_ !” Sirius’ skin prickled with a thousand fiery needles— _release, release, release._

 

“My Cheerios,” his punished human mumbled, eyes glued to the ground forlornly.

 

“How can you even be functioning on this little sleep?” Sirius’ voice pitched higher and higher as he spoke. He wondered if he was capable of yanking his fake human hair out.

 

“You know the others aren’t usually this rude. Just frightening.” His punished human looked back up and squinted at Sirius. Quickly, he shoved his finger forward and then retreated to cradle it after jabbing Sirius’ body. “Or as physical,” he added, cocking his head. “Huh. Weird.”

 

“I’m not imaginary,” Sirius scoffed, offense flaring up hot and quick. “And there are no others. I would know,” he said proudly. “I’d smell them.”

 

His punished human puffed out a snort of air. He preferred puffing and huffing as a form of communication, it seemed.

 

“I’m a sleep demon,” Sirius went on. He considered shifting into his _true_ form and making it visible, but he got the impression that would do the opposite of good.

 

“Yeah, and I’m a werewolf.”

 

“No, you aren’t. I’ve seen you during full moons.” How dumb did this human think Sirius was?

 

His punished human chuckled and stepped over the Cheerios, throwing one last sad glance to the fallen cereal. He retreated to the green couch. “It’s called sarcasm.”

 

“Oh.”

 

They didn’t speak for a long time after that. Sirius’ punished human went about his business, putting on glasses and pulling out a stack of papers. He ignored Sirius’ presence to the point that Sirius thought he had slipped up and gone invisible again. Eventually, Sirius came over and perched on the couch armrest.

 

Sirius tried for a soft voice. Lily often told him he was too abrasive. “Why won’t you sleep?”

 

“Told you yesterday,” his punished human said, biting on the end of a red pen.

 

“Aren’t you supposed to take those bottle things? Pills?”

 

His shoulders stayed relaxed but Sirius heard the throat swallow, the new strain in his punished human’s voice. “I don’t like how they make me feel.”

 

“How do they make you feel?” Sirius tugged on the outfit he had conjured for himself, acting bored. He wasn’t used to this but he’d watched Lily in the field before—acting uninterested made people less nervous, sometimes.

 

His punished human stuck the pen in his mouth and waved his hands around his head, communicating something Sirius didn’t get, before taking the pen back in hand. “Fuzzy and strange. Sluggish. Like if something happened, I couldn’t do anything to defend myself, I’d just be fast asleep.”

 

“No control,” Sirius said, moving to sit on the couch cushion beside his punished human, who smiled sympathetically at Sirius. He paused. “Well, what if there was someone to watch over you? Make sure nothing happened.”

 

“I don’t—I don’t have anyone like that.”

 

A squiggly human emotion—what a bother, to feel things—rose in Sirius and he said, “I can.”

 

“Thanks,” the vulnerable moment ended, “but a ‘sleep demon’ isn’t a comforting presence to watch over me. Sorry.”

 

Sirius frowned. That didn’t sound like an apology at all. He breathed, trying to focus away from the toxic energy stirring inside him. He switched tactics. “Can we watch the small people again? In the computer?”

 

His punished human laughed. He seemed to find a lot of things Sirius said amusing, but he was kind, not hesitating to turn the lights off when Sirius said they hurt his eyes—a lie—and quietly explaining the show’s plot, patient when Sirius didn’t understand the small people’s conversations.

 

And just like Sirius had hoped, with the show and the lights off, his punished human fell asleep.

 

Sirius hovered—figuratively—knowing he needed to touch his punished human’s head to release the soon-to-be nightmares. He lifted a finger and a particular brand of strangeness washed over him, like something tumbled down his throat and into his stomach, crashing and sitting heavily. It was too wrong, Sirius realized, he couldn’t do this while he was in human form. He was too much of a coward.

 

Changing back into his invisible nothingness, he physically hovered around his punished human’s head. Sirius braced himself for a moment, but the energy roiling inside him became far too much, backed-up too many days.

 

He released, freeing himself as the negative energy surged forth and latched onto his punished human’s skull, seeping into his Innocent soul.

 

☽☽☽

 

Sirius would like it stated for the record that none of this was his fault.

 

Okay, maybe he’d make a few amendments here and there, but for the most part, it was harmless, alright?

 

All Sirius had wanted was to have a little fun. He’d been doing his duty as a Dark sleep demon perfectly for decades since the last accident. He deserved a nice slip-up. A little oopsie-daisy— _you piece of abusive shit parent, now you suddenly have a three-hour nightmare of teddy bears eating your flesh._

 

Come on, it was a common slip-up mistake, was it not?

 

Nobody quite understood how sleep demon energy worked, so it was more than probable that a demon’s powers could naturally seek out the nearest sleeping human without the demon’s control. Surely, other Darks had unintentionally given teddy bear nightmare dreams, too.

 

Apparently, the Dark sleep demon Council didn’t agree with Sirius.

 

Apparently, he “targeted” an unassigned human on his own free will. And apparently, not only was he to be disciplined, his newest punishment would be inspired by how they dealt with him as a youngling.

 

Which brought him to his current predicament, stuck with his goddamn fucking punished human. Sleep demons—whether Dark or Light—generally never stayed with one person, always on the move, flitting from one human to the next to the next. Sirius didn’t care for humans himself, hadn’t for a long time on principle. In his young years, the Dark Council put him on a leash that didn’t allow a choice in which humans he infected. The Council created a randomly generated set of humans he had to stick to. When he had failed to follow that correctly, his strike two earned him a new list primarily made up of Innocents. Even after he completed those terrible years, the Council kept him chained to a list of assignments, though not specifically targeting one group of humans over others.

 

But now on his third strike—choosing to inflict nightmares on an abusive father rather than the assigned abused son—the Council shackled him to one Innocent, the same fucking Innocent every single fucking night.

 

It made this whole indifference act towards humans much more difficult. Especially this specific human.

 

Sirius hadn’t wanted to know how much of an Innocent his current punished human was, didn’t want to be briefed or to snoop through the human’s memories. But his punished human’s aura practically _reeked_ of goodness, blindingly so—Sirius couldn’t even begin to pretend that his punished human was anything other than _good_. Scrambling for some kind of control, he had resisted actively watching his punished human’s daily life, but after a few weeks, resisting curiosity became impossible.

 

So Sirius started watching over his human, followed him about his day.

 

He looked into _everything_ , trying to find something to justify giving his Innocent human nightmares. There had to be some impurity. His human snapped a few times at people, usually at his annoying friend with that horrid hair. Sirius eagerly collected these imperfect moments and tried to ignore that the sharp comments made by his punished human were generally fair and well-deserved.

 

Lupin, Sirius had discovered, was his punished human’s Official name. Sirius read it on a suitcase and on papers. But thinking of his punished human by name was tricky business, creating further attachment and care.

 

Now that they’ve met face-to-human face, Sirius wondered if it was futile to put off attachment and if he should address his punished human correctly.

 

But he did enjoy saying _his human_ —Lupin probably would not appreciate that and Lily scolded Sirius when he said it, but it was a fact. Lupin was _Sirius’_ human. His _punished_ human, perhaps, but _his_ human nonetheless.

 

His stupid, stupid human.

 

Sirius was seriously mistaken thinking he was in the throes of a complete and utter shithole, as Lily would have put it, when he first learned of this assignment. No, no, _now_ he was in a shithole. Because his punished human had to go be stupid and mess everything up. Last week, “Lupin” stopped taking those little tablets. Medication bottles cluttered the apartment, bottles that Sirius understood not at all expect for it apparently meant life dealt Lupin a shitty hand. And sometimes along with general life, people were shitty to Lupin, too.

 

Something nasty grew inside Sirius incessantly. At times he twisted horrific dreams, just like he had with the teddy bears to that father, into Lupin’s head, trying to goad him into breaking and rising up to the anger he deserved to release. He wanted to break Lupin down so that Lupin could rightfully break others down.

 

It never happened. If anything, Lupin became kinder, a deflection as he quietly retreated into himself. The last time Sirius meddled with the nightmares, Lupin woke up sobbing and Sirius almost, _almost_ revealed himself to comfort his human and apologize.

 

Perhaps it was karma, his human stopping his pills. Lupin finally had a fault, even if he was unaware that it hurt others by foregoing sleeping.

 

What a shithole, indeed.

 

Sirius hardly ever went into human form. He didn’t like it. Demons had many forms, but generally preferred only one of them, whichever it may be. Sirius liked invisible nothingness, and demon form for when he was with Lily. Goddamn lucky Lily, blessed with the existence of gifting good dreams; a Light sleep demon. She loved the human form, found humans endlessly fascinating, and even attended and graduated from several colleges. She, unlike Sirius, was high up in the sleep demon ranks.

 

What would she think of him now, going into human form twice and interacting with a sleeper? Probably laugh hysterically at Sirius’ first spoken sentence, but he had wanted to blend in and he just regurgitated human phrases he had heard her say— _man, fuck’s sake, dude._

 

He felt he pulled the act off pretty well, thank you very much.

 

So, as Sirius lingered over Lupin, his punished human, manipulated into sleeping for the first time in five days, whimpering from the nightmares Sirius had forced upon him—Sirius wanted it known, for the record, that really, none of this was his fault.

 

It wasn’t.

 

☽☽☽

 

“Ugh,” Sirius groaned.

 

Lily, sitting at a little table in France, didn’t startle even a little at Sirius’ sudden visit. It was a little insulting, really. She could have at least flinched or shown a little shock.

 

Paris felt sunny even with gloomy clouds and of course Lily would be here, in her plump human form, all red hair and flower-patterned clothing. She even wore a fucking sun hat with a wide brim and no one even cared how unnecessary that was, even more so in the shade of the cafe’s awning.

 

The person she sat with, a skinny thing of a woman, a real human, didn’t mind at all when Lily excused herself. The woman held no ill will at Lily’s departure, not insulted in the least that Lily just up and left. That was all Lily’s charm—no funny demon business to change minds.

 

Walking down the street at a leisurely pace, Lily remarked, “Haven’t seen you in a bit. What kept you?”

 

This was also a Lily thing, she just _knew._ It didn’t matter what or when or where or why, she just knew these things. They had gone longer times apart without popping in for a chat for no other reason than they hadn’t chosen to see each other or hadn’t the time. But she somehow knew that he had been unwillingly kept from seeing her.

 

“Ugh,” Sirius repeated loudly to her ears. He drifted alongside her, humans deaf and blind to him.

 

“Can’t I meet him?”

 

“Can we go somewhere private,” Sirius deflected as they turned a corner. “People will think you’re crazy talking to yourself.”

 

“I’m not talking to myself. I’m talking with you, you dramatic arse.”

 

“I hate you. Also, arse? What, British now, are you?” Sirius couldn’t grin while being nothingness but he knew Lily sensed it from the look she shot in his general direction. “Seriously, you look crazy.”

 

“Sometimes you’re so fucking naive, Ser. People have technology where they can talk to people across the world. People think I’m taking a phone call. Bluetooth and shit.” Lily adored teasing Sirius but there never was any heat behind it. She led them to a small park with only a few humans mingling about. The ones that were there walked past them with dogs or chatted rapidly with friends, uncaring to Lily and, unknowingly by extension, Sirius.

 

A breeze shifted Lily’s hair, untucking the strands from behind her ears under her stupid hat. Her hair was a shade darker than last time, cut closer to her chin, red still but with a darker auburn undertone. Relaxing at the lack of humans, Sirius changed into his demon form, kept hidden from all except her.

 

Lily cracked a smile at seeing him, her eyes lighting up in a way that they didn’t when he chose to be nothing. “Missed you.”

 

“Missed you more,” Sirius said, rolling his eyes, prompting Lily to roll her eyes back at him.

 

“So how is the Innocent human? I’d eat my hat before you’d admit to staying with him this long voluntarily.”

 

“Ugh,” Sirius said once more before regaling the story into a few simple sentences. Lily clutched his knee, her human knuckles turning white, when he admitted to not releasing the dark energy for so many days.

 

“So, he thinks you’re a hallucination?” Lily bypassed the fact that Sirius went visibly human for the first time in decades and he was infinitely grateful for that.

 

“I guess.” Sirius shrugged, shaking his knee so she’d let go. He didn’t want humans to see her holding what appeared to be just air.

 

Retracting her claws from Sirius’ leg, Lily blew out a breath. Unhelpfully, a vision of Lupin doing his weird air-puff communications came to mind. “That’s rough,” Lily said.

 

“Fucking annoying,” Sirius agreed.

 

Lily leveled him a _look._ “I meant for him, you arse.” She paused. “Do you think...people have visited him?” Validation flooded Sirius at knowing even Lily had limits to living freely in the human world, carefully saying _people_ in substitute of Creatures.

 

“Of course not,” Sirius scoffed. “You know I’d know. It’s not like I give a fuck about his day but even if I go blank, I’d know if someone intruded his Perimeter. Fucking Perimeter, can’t believe I was stuck in there for like four, five days?”

 

If Lily holding Sirius’ knee looked weird to the oblivious outside world, then her stroking his hair was out of the question unless he decided to become visible. But like how Lily knew Sirius was grinning at her when he was a nothingness, Sirius also knew when Lily wished to touch him when he was in an invisible form. Just knowing that she wanted to touch-comfort him soothed him immensely.

 

“You’re free now,” she said. “What do you want to do?”

 

“I don’t know.” Sirius slumped from his rigid form on the bench, giving into the weird human gesture of placing his head in his hands. Ugh, he’d been publicly human twice and he had already picked up stupid habits. “I feel the energy building up again. I’ll be forced to return to him soon.”

 

They sat silently. Time mattered little for their kind. A great big beast of a dog meandered past them with a frazzled looking man. A group of young girls chattered away in fast spoken French, none of which Sirius understood unless he forced his powers to translate. A small bird swooped by, chased soon after by another. If Sirius focused on it, he’d be able to feel the chill of the breeze creating temporary waves of wrinkles along the brim of Lily’s sunhat.

 

“Will you let him see you again?”

 

A few leaves scattered from the tree in front of them. Humans told time by nature, by seasons. Leaves falling probably meant something big or something small.

 

“I don’t know,” Sirius admitted.

 

Lily clearly didn’t care enough about her Paris reputation as a real human talking on “bluetooth”, choosing to thread her human fingers with Sirius’ invisible demon ones. He hadn’t known how much he craved the weight of another being. For a scary, fleeting second, he wished to be visibly present, to be able to touch more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you can follow me on tumblr here [siriuslysarcasticremus](https://siriuslysarcasticremus.tumblr.com/)


	2. how to be a human 101 (November-December)

**_November_ **

 

Sirius spent less time being blank and mindless when he returned to Lupin, even if he still favored his nothingness form. He idly kept track of what his punished human did, somewhat happily noting that Lupin made a compromise with slumber—sleeping every two nights and napping at least three hours on the days he went without sleep.

 

It sucked, but it was more than Sirius could have asked for. Not that Sirius didn’t want to ask for more, he struggled constantly against wanting to speak with Lupin and knocking some goddamn sense into the stupid human’s head.

 

Weeks went by since they last spoke and Lupin tugged Sirius along within a mile radius of him, trapping him until he napped and freed Sirius to wander wherever he wanted. But Lily had her own things going on and, more and more these days, Sirius preferred to just stay in the Perimeter around his punished human instead of leaving. He became used to the constant ache of being full of negative energy, unable to unburden it all onto Lupin because he slept so little.

 

A new ache formed that wasn’t so easy to adapt to. It felt suspiciously like a human-feeling ache. Sirius hated human-feelings. It made him want...things. Want _a_ something. It made him _bored._ Humanly bored, like he must do something or he’d die from it.

 

“I’m gonna die,” Sirius said, falling into his human body for the third time with a thump, landing on the green couch. He flickered between transparent and opaque before he got a hold of himself.

 

Lupin spared him a glance, looking Sirius up and down and once more again with wider eyes. Thoughtlessly, Sirius had dressed himself in an exact copy of Lupin’s clothes—brown pants frayed at the edges and an overly large white shirt. Sirius didn’t exactly plan on going visible—there hadn’t been time to think up an outfit! At least it was better than being naked.

 

Lupin’s eyebrows dipped downward. “Not you again.”

 

Sirius jerked back into the couch cushions, sincerely meaning it when he said, “Fuck you!”

 

A puff of laughter escaped Lupin’s lips, washing away some of Sirius’ irritability. An almost-smile crept across his punished human’s lips. “Fuck you,” Lupin said pleasantly.

 

“I’m bored,” Sirius said. “So, so bored. You’re really boring.”

 

Lupin genuinely laughed this time. “Hey, fuck you.”

 

“Fuck you,” Sirius answered back, stupidly giddy. He liked this thing. They had a _Thing._

 

“Maybe _fuck you_ can be our _always_ ,” Lupin muttered. He said it in a funny tone, seemingly mocking. Sirius didn’t understand—clearly, Lupin thought this was a _Thing_ , too. Which was great, being on the same page and everything. Sirius hadn’t expected this whole human thing to be so easy.

 

“Exactly,” Sirius agreed. Maybe he needed to encourage his punished human into understanding that this was a thing they had in common. A special thing. And that was a good thing between humans, not something to mock. Lily said commonalities were essential with humans.

 

Sirius’ poor punished human. So ignorant. So stupid.

 

No matter, Sirius would help him understand that their _Thing_ was a good thing.

 

Looking at Sirius as if _he_ was the lost one, Lupin said, “No, that’s...y’know, a meme.” Sirius stared. “‘ _Okay can be our always’?_ ”

 

“No, _fuck_ _you_ is,” how had Lupin put it, “our always,” Sirius corrected.

 

“No, it’s—it’s a joke. I’m not laughing at you!” Lupin hurriedly said at Sirius’ hurt expression. “Okay, jeez, give me a second.”

 

Sirius let himself fall transparent, saving his energy, as he watched Lupin leave and go into his bedroom. Lupin returned and Sirius flickered back to life at the sight of the computer. He waited as Lupin did whatever he had to do to make the small people come up onto the screen.

 

“Okay,” Lupin reclined into the couch and glanced at Sirius, “Hallucination, meet Fault in Our Stars.” He waved at Sirius and then to the computer. “Fault in Our Stars, meet Hallucination.” He waved the computer to Sirius.

 

Before Sirius could hiss about being named _Hallucination_ , Lupin clicked something and the story began. Huffing—ugh, now Sirius was doing strange breathing communications, too—Sirius leaned forward, staying a respectable distance away as he peered at a small young woman with short brown hair.

 

☽☽☽

 

Sirius knew little about humans. According to Lupin’s standards, at least. And Lily’s, but she’d been saying that for decades and he’d been saying _fuck off_ for decades.

 

They didn’t talk much, him and Lupin. Mostly, Sirius’ punished human sat them down on the ratty green couch and made Sirius watch various stories with small people inside his computer. _Movies,_ Lupin called them. Sirius indulged Lupin’s insistence on catching up on “pop culture” despite the betrayal Lupin stabbed him with at the depressing ending of The Fault in Our Stars. All hurt was forgiven when Lupin played a movie with an arrogant asshole Sirius liked very much who built himself a flying robot that he could go inside of and shoot lasers from his hands.

 

Yes, Sirius decided after that movie, his punished human was a very good human to have.

 

Humans were kind of dumb, though—but curiously entertaining. Sirius let his punished human think he did Sirius a service by teaching him “how to act human”. In reality, Sirius was the one teaching Lupin how to be an actual functioning human.

 

“Let me get this straight,” Lily interrupted herself to chuckle and say _gay_ (Sirius assumed it was a reference Lupin hadn’t caught Sirius up to speed with yet), “you, a demon, are teaching a real in-the-flesh human being...how to be a human?”

 

Sirius stopped right before the synagogue they were passing by to shoot Lily a dry look. “Uh, duh? You should see him. He’s a disaster.”

 

Lily returned Sirius’ look with her own _you-stupid-motherfucker_ expression. She walked forward with a shake of her head and Sirius hurried to catch up with her. He ghosted as a demon alongside her, finding himself more annoyed than usual when people passed through him without realizing.

 

“Okay,” Lily said, stopping at the entrance of the synagogue. “I’m gonna meet him someday, _scumpete._ ”

 

Used to being called nicknames in foreign languages, Sirius didn’t bother asking for a translation or doing one himself. She never told him and it had settled into a well-loved game between them for him to figure it out by context. Right now, he couldn’t tell if it was a new language she picked up and was completely botching whatever she meant to say. It sure sounded odd. Either something insulting or incredibly sappy. For two decades, she got away with calling him a stupid egg in Mandarin.

 

“It’s nothing worth bothering a visit,” Sirius said, changing into nothingness and slipping away back to Lupin’s apartment.

 

He hadn’t lied. The fragile routine he and Lupin settled into wasn’t much of anything. They rarely spoke, Lupin carelessly insulted Sirius by referring to him as Hallucination, and their whole dynamic revolved only around the green couch.

 

A fond humanly feeling grew inside Sirius over the monstrosity of the beatdown couch.

 

There was The Official Punished Human Perimeter locked in place by the Dark Council, keeping Sirius within a mile or so range of Lupin. Then there was this...unique perimeter, of sorts, around Lupin’s couch. Within the area surrounding it, Sirius and Lupin were allowed this comfortable little bubble where they existed as a _Thing_. Sirius didn’t know what kind of thing it was—they didn’t keep saying _fuck you_ anymore, which was sad and a loss of having a _Thing_ —but it was a small sort of _something_.

 

Sometimes, Sirius wished the Couch Perimeter extended beyond the couch. He could leave it easily, of course, but Lupin freaked out when Sirius appeared in other parts of the apartment or in the daytime. Sirius suspected it had something to do with the whole hallucination ordeal. Which was fucking annoying, by the way.

 

But, whatever. Not like Sirius _cared_ about what Lupin thought or anything. Sirius didn’t do human-feelings. That was why he loved the demonic floating nothingness form—everything was fantastically dull. Every day, Sirius drifted around as such while his punished human did his weird work on the computer that brought home little money that didn’t explain at all how he had such a nice apartment. Then, around nine o’clock, Lupin nibbled on some food and started playing a movie and Sirius shifted into his physical human form.

 

“This is boring,” Sirius said, unusually talkative a week into their routine.

 

“That’s because you’re bored easily,” Lupin mumbled. This was true—apparently, human-Sirius was prone to boredom quickly. Lupin then startled slightly. “What do you mean this boring! This is a tragic, thrilling classic.”

 

“It’s  _boring_. It’s stupid and annoying and inaccurate.” Sirius wrinkled his nose. He remembered that night—he had stayed away but he knew Lily had fretted about, desperately giving any unconscious children good dreams in their last moments. “Why do humans want to make themselves so sad?”

 

“Catharsis,” Lupin said, watching the money-poor boy draw a little girl.

 

“What’s that?”

 

“Relieving internal pain through external means, like watching a movie that makes you cry when you’re sad.”

 

“Humans are so dumb.”

 

As usual, Lupin laughed. “You’re not wrong.”

 

He laughed again when Sirius blanched when the main woman went in the _nude_ for the boy to draw her and laughed more when Sirius asked why the car windows got all fogged up with the woman and boy inside.

 

Sirius refused to keep watching when the boy officially froze and the woman pried his fingers off and let him sink.

 

“She said she’d never let go!” Sirius raged, having sprung to his feet. “She said she wouldn’t let go and then she just— _le_ _t go_? What the fuck?” Sirius stole the phrase Remus often muttered to himself throughout the day when he didn’t know Sirius was there, “What the literal fuck?” Something about _literal_ made it better.

 

A loud knock interrupted Sirius’ next outrage— _there was literally more than enough room for him to be on the wood with her!_ Abruptly, Sirius meant nothing anymore to his punished human. Lupin ignored him, as if Sirius had never been there, and walked to the door, exchanging money with one of those people that brought food in a bag.

 

Flopping back onto the couch, Sirius crossed his arms, stewing in petulance. Lupin’s tense body posture satisfied Sirius a little. His punished human might have abandoned him for another, but he wasn’t comfortable with this man like he was with Sirius.

 

“What’s that?” Sirius asked after the exchange finished and the door closed, pointing to the crumpled note Lupin tossed onto the coffee table. Lupin set down a flimsy bag filled with three white boxes.

 

“Food,” Lupin said. He walked off to the kitchen and Sirius twisted his body so he could watch.

 

“I know that.” He hooked his chin over the back of the couch. “What’s the note?”

 

Lupin ducked his head unnecessarily as he rummaged for utensils. Sirius would have better eyesight if he went into full-demon, but he swore that even his weak human eyes saw a change in Lupin’s skin tone. His cheeks became blotchy with pink tinges.

 

“He gave me his number.” Sirius made an inquiring noise and his punished human sighed. “I should have realized with what I’m wearing. James claimed he flirts with me but I didn’t actually believe it.”

 

Most of that made little sense to Sirius, and part of him was too caught up on the fact that this was the most they’ve ever talked and Lupin divulged more unneeded information willingly. But Sirius did catch onto the fact that this had to be something romantic. Maybe courting? But why did the outfit have anything to do with it? If anything, it should have deterred the interested party. Lupin was laughably underdressed with the poor excuse of tiny pants and a rainbow shirt that was so old and worn-thin, you could see Lupin’s nipples. Not dignified at all.

 

Sirius didn’t like the whole thing. He had to do something. He couldn’t let this strange man steal Remus’ virtue! He thought of the phrases Lily yelled when she saw humans doing something wrong. Sirius recycled his favorite. “Well, tell him to take his... _numbers_ ,” whatever that meant, “and to shove them up his ass,” Sirius spat and then promptly left, free to do so since he expelled the bad energy into Remus earlier during a daytime nap.

 

“You’re looking incredibly sullen,” Lily remarked later in Kenya.

 

Sirius hated Lily sometimes. He wasn’t even in a visible form for her to see—how could she know he was sullen? He kept quiet for a few minutes before demanding to know what it meant for a human’s skin to turn pink.

 

**_December_ **

 

Sirius only avoided his punished human for four days until he popped back onto the couch. Lupin made no comment to how Sirius yelled and disappeared after the whole numbers incident. Humans turned out to be blessedly forgetful. Which Sirius was perfectly on board with—at least when it came to his advantage.

 

He continued taking humans courting his punished human with extreme seriousness, however. If learning to act human was hard, then learning the art of subtlety was even harder, Sirius found, but he was giving it his best shot. When “delivery people”— _and what did they do to earn the title of Delivery? Sirius was very suspicious. Delivery of love?_ —came to the door with food, Sirius stood behind Lupin. Lupin, oblivious, accepted the food while Sirius glowered at whatever romantic prospect gifting food came to visit. Sirius quickly transported back onto the couch when his punished human closed the door and turned to face the couch after the delivery person retreated hastily due to Sirius’ glare.

 

So, maybe Sirius veered off the path of subtlety and straight into deception. But whatever got the job done, got the job done, so what did it matter?

 

Dubbing himself as his punished human’s caretaker, Sirius took up this strategy in earnest—working behind Lupin’s back. During the day when they didn’t interact, Sirius filled a glass of water and, invisibly, set it near Lupin. Whenever he moved to a different part of the apartment, Sirius secretly moved it soon after. The endeavor ended with semi-successful results. Lupin now drank half a cup of water a day, compared to the tiny sips Sirius rarely ever saw him drink before. However, Sirius worried greatly for his human, with how entirely unsuspicious he was of sudden glasses of water appearing. Occasionally, Lupin stared at the glass for several seconds when it moved again, but then he’d continue with his tasks.

 

For someone so paranoid, it made no sense. The urge to mess around the apartment was unfairly tempting, to see how far Sirius could get away before Lupin noticed. He focused instead on the true struggle—getting his punished human to eat.

 

Sirius planted a nutrition bar under the couch EIGHT days ago. While being invisible, he kicked objects under the couch at least three times a day. Lupin hardly spared the bar a glance when he’d retrieve the object, not even bothering to grab the bar to keep the apartment tidy. Twice, Sirius squeezed his nothingness form under the couch and planted the bar in Lupin’s outstretched hand. Both times Lupin just chucked it right back under.

 

Finally, today, Lupin took it out and unwrapped it.

 

Only to take one bite, scrunch his face, and throw it toward the trash can, missing it by a good distance.

 

When a Delivery suitor arrived a few days later, Sirius equally sagged with relief and annoyance.

 

☽☽☽

 

“Oh—ah! Skip it! No,” Sirius brought one hand over his eyes, “skip!”

 

“Okay, okay, look everything’s fine. It got away, happily living in a field now,” Lupin said, resuming the show.

 

Sirius whined in his throat, crossing his arms. “Liar,” he accused. He hated how humans found lying a form of comfort for someone distressed.

 

“You said you wanted to watch it,” Lupin reminded.

 

Sirius bared his teeth, careful to make sure they stayed rounded, and his punished human chuckled. “I thought it was a human apocalypse,” Sirius said.

 

His punished human released a light huff. At the end of the next episode, he said, “The animals didn’t magically disappear. A human apocalypse affects the whole world.”

 

Sirius harrumphed.

 

“You’re ridiculous.”

 

“How,” Sirius demanded.

 

“You can easily watch humans die but not animals.”

 

Sirius ignored the assumption in favor of whining, “But the _horse._ ” He added, “Hey, you don’t cry over any deaths.”

 

Lupin shrugged. “C’est la vie.”

 

☽☽☽

 

Nights came quickly now, which Sirius appreciated as daylight hours became less and less. It meant he could become human as early as five or six, turning visible for his punished human. He found that he craved company so much more now that he semi-merged into the human world. The stupid human-feelings lingered even when he went into nothingness. Blank neutrality only returned if he stayed in his nothing form for a few days, finally shaking off all remaining quirks that grew from a night with Lupin.

 

“What do you do?” Sirius asked. He thumped the back of his head slightly against the couch armrest. He had thrown his legs over the back of the couch, his body contorted in a strange L-ish shape, boredly trying out strange sitting positions. He kept Lupin’s personal space in mind, allowing Lupin to have his far left of the couch untouched by Sirius’ restless legs.

 

Releasing a _huh?_ that was more of an exhale than a word, Lupin continued squinting at his computer, pulled it closer up on his lap. Words ran across the screen instead of their zombie show.

 

“Your job,” Sirius elaborated. He kicked his dangling feet. The back of the couch pushed into his calves uncomfortably and he numbed that section away, having no patience for human physical pain. His demonic pain hurt enough as it was. “That’s what you’re doing, right?”

 

“Mm,” Lupin agreed.

 

“Well, what is it, then?”

 

“I edit.”

 

“Edit what?”

 

“Stuff.”

 

“What kind of stuff? For who?”

 

“Just stuff.”

 

Grunting, Sirius swung his legs back over the couch and onto the ground, sitting up. “You’ve been doing this all day. I want to watch our show.”

 

“Mm.”

 

“Lupin,” Sirius snapped—his cheeks felt hot, which was a new thing. All his anger at the clipped answers surged to the surface of his skin.

 

Head jerking back, Lupin looked at Sirius for the second time this night. His lips parted just enough to see a sliver of teeth. His eyelids struggled to widen but exhaustion kept his eyes permanently half-lidded.

 

“Lu- _pin_ ,” Sirius drawled, hoping to keep the attention now that he gained it. For good measure, he poked his toe against his punished human’s leg.

 

A wrong move—saying his name or poking him or both.

 

Sirius’ punished human turned catatonic, the computer clanking on the ground as he pulled his knees up, pressing his forehead onto them and cupping a hand around one ear. He kept this stilled position, not even shaking, hardly breathing.

 

Spooked, Sirius fled after ten painfully uncomfortably minutes. Luckily, his punished human had dozed two hours prior, which had allowed Sirius to release a small portion of darkness, enough so that Sirius could leave the Perimeter—not for long, maybe only a few minutes before he’d be pulled back.

 

He wasted no time in finding Lily. For once, she resided in her true demon form, eating strawberries in a deserted meadow.

 

“Aw shit, what did you do?” It shocked Sirius for a moment, seeing Lily’s eyes narrowed as she analyzed him. Her pupils were a thin vertical slit in the sun, irises a paler green than her human ones. As much as seeing her true self soothed Sirius, she intimidated him much more like this.

 

“I don’t know!” Sirius said in a half-lie. He knew what he did, but he didn’t know why it was bad. He told her so.

 

“Ser!” Lily chucked the spit-covered green leafy part of a strawberry at him. “You just left him like that? I swear to...you’re giving me an anxiety complex.” She threw another stem at him. “Go back to him, you idiot. And be less of yourself!” Sirius scowled. “Oh, and come see me again, I need more quality time with you, love.”

 

Transporting back, Sirius found the couch empty. Panic surged through him, even as his senses located his punished human in the bedroom. Sirius glided over there, remembering _be less of yourself_ and scowling again as he made himself invisible. No visibility beyond the Couch Perimeter, not even in exception for how sorely he wished to confront—softly, _softly_ confront—his punished human.

 

The lump inside the nest of blankets on the bed shook. Needing to do _something_ , Sirius laid himself on top of his lump of a punished human. He couldn’t be seen and he made himself weightless, ensuring that his punished human wouldn’t know he was there. All he had to give was a source of heat.

 

Even that was useless—his human continued to shiver even when Sirius dialed up the temperature.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you can follow me on tumblr here [siriuslysarcasticremus](https://siriuslysarcasticremus.tumblr.com/)


	3. started from the bottom and now we--nope still at the bottom (January-February)

**_January_ **

 

Sirius stayed away after that. He retreated to his nothingness and it took days and days and days before the numbness of that form completed, all residual human side-effects gone.

 

Demons could Call out to other demons, though it was a finicky and rare thing to do. The Call was more muted when transferred between a Light and Dark. Still, Sirius felt the faint yearning Lily sent out to him.

 

Ignoring it, sadly, was his forte. His talents seemed to include many useless and hurtful actions.

 

A loud crash alerted Sirius out of the well-crafted haze he had going on.

 

“No,” Lupin said, muffled and mournful.

 

 _Ugh_  Sirius thought, drifting to the bedroom. The bedroom was small, oddly so compared to the open and spacious main room of the apartment. Personally, it made Sirius claustrophobic. The bed had no frame, sitting on the ground, and stacks of books lined the wall on both sides of it, used as low shelves in absence of a bedside table. The yellow book on top of the stack closest to Lupin’s left side had several circular stains overlapping each other and the glass of water usually sitting on it was shattered on the ground in large pieces.

 

“Eh,” Lupin said. A short, slow huff left his lips. A limp arm flopped off the mattress, peeking out from the blankets, and his knuckles brushed the floor. Listlessly, he stared at the broken glass and puddle of water.

 

The scene was as sad and pathetic as Sirius—maybe sadder. Flipping through his mental catalogue of the past week, Sirius realized Lupin hadn’t left bed for four days except for six bathroom trips and two kitchen trips for a bag of chips and the entire Cheerio box. Sirius rewound the catalogue once more, finding only two instances of Lupin sipping at the water after staring at the glass for forty minutes beforehand.

 

On one hand, pride filled Sirius that his human had been going to drink water a third time and on the other hand, fury flared up over how stupid his human had been for not drinking enough. And clumsily tipping the glass over.

 

“You stupid human,” Sirius said, unheard, in a plane that humans had no part in.

 

☽☽☽

 

“Drink something,” Sirius demanded from the couch, as soon as Lupin walked into the main room after a trip to the toilet.

 

The shock on his punished human’s face sent the ball of nerves inside Sirius going haywire—being in human form after so long amplified all his human-feelings. Any hint of emotion felt like unbearable pain ripping through him.

 

His punished human smiled a small smile. “You’ve been waiting long?”

 

“Yes,” Sirius said, “and I will be waiting even longer until you drink something. And food!”

 

“So demanding,” Lupin commented as he walked to the kitchen.

 

“And I want to watch zombies!”

 

The barely audible chuckle warmed Sirius immensely, burning him more than the other emotions did.

 

He hardly minded at all.

 

☽☽☽

 

“What’s that,” Sirius asked the next night, watching Lupin pour a tiny green tablet into his hand from an orange bottle.

 

“Meds,” Lupin mumbled. Staring intensely at the tablet, he tilted his head from side-to-side before finally snapping it in half. He put one half back in the bottle and threw his head back, popping the pill in his mouth and dry swallowing it—fast, like this was his only chance of taking it.

 

“I thought you didn’t take those.”

 

Remus shrugged, setting the bottle on the table before pausing and then moving it under the couch, out of sight.

 

“Is that...bad?” A Lily-like voice scolded Sirius in his head, compelling him to stop pushing.

 

“What,” Lupin said flatly, agitation quickly climbing up his shoulders and into his voice. Sirius grew more curious.

 

“Like, is it bad to stop and then start again?”

 

“No. Well—yes. It depends.” Lupin spoke slow, choosing each word carefully, defensiveness coming and going between words, “They give these pills to people on a short-term basis, sometimes. So, it’s not bad if I suddenly start taking it again. I’m even taking half the dose, so.”

 

Sirius never learned lessons, so he pushed their boundary further. “I thought you didn’t take that stuff around hallucinations.”

 

“It just relaxes me. I can push past the drowsiness if it comes. Can we just watch the show, Mr. Twenty Questions? Sometimes you’re worse than—” Lupin sighed, pinched his nose briefly, and switched topics. “Let’s just watch.”

 

Sirius brewed in his thoughts, not liking being compared to someone as well as being robbed of answers he wanted. Sometime later, Lupin paused the show as a hoard of zombies descended on the camp.

 

“You know what? Let’s watch Youtube tonight. I want to watch Megalodon.”

 

The night flipped into one of the greatest. Lupin sort of forgot about Sirius, a bit, scrunching his body up into the corner of the couch with the computer balanced precariously on his lap. But he made up for it by chattering away and Sirius compensated by balancing on the back of the couch, semi-floating, so he could see the different videos. The website Lupin pulled up consisted of hundreds and hundreds of videos, shorter than movies and T.V. shows. They didn’t connect into one cohesive storyline, which bothered Sirius, but if it brought his punished human joy, then so be it.

 

The videos dedicated to large sharks shifted into videos that were a jumbled mix of ocean-related lore.

 

“God, I wish I was a fucking mermaid,” Remus said.

 

“You want to have sex with a _mermaid_?” Sirius spluttered.

 

“No, I want to _be_ a mermaid.” Lupin thoughtfully amended, “Merman.”

 

Scoffing, Sirius crossed his arms. “They’re bratty shits.”

 

Lupin glanced up at Sirius, tilting his head back with a crooked smile, so loose and at ease. It made Sirius forget about the broken glass still lying in the bedroom. “Did someone have a sordid love affair with a fair sea maiden?”

 

“Demons don’t have relationships,” Sirius said.

 

A curious sound rumbled in the back of Lupin’s throat and he turned his attention back to the freaky, and inaccurate, portrayal of mere-creatures.

 

“But!” Sirius scrambled, wanting more attention directly on himself. “Uh, a siren tried to lure me to death.”

 

“Really?” Lupin’s eyes stayed tiredly half-lidded, though bright with interest.

 

“Yeah, Peter, he—”

 

“I thought sirens were women.”

 

Sirius rolled his eyes. “No. So, I was on an assignment doing, uh—well, I was on a ship when I heard someone crying on a rock. It was a little boy but then when I got closer, he transformed into this floppy blob with sharp teeth—”

 

“Like shark teeth or like fangs?”

 

His punished human never interrupted like this. Deciding it to be very rude, Sirius ignored the question. “He was very upset when he saw I was a demon and the asshole tried to sing and see if he could lure me anyway.” Smugly, he continued, “Didn’t work.”

 

“He was just doing his job,” Lupin pointed out.

 

“I guess. He was pretty  _chill_ —” one of Sirius’ new favorite description terms “—but I don’t really like people who are disappointed that they can’t eat me. He finds me sometimes when I'm near water and brings me shiny rocks.”

 

Lupin’s face lit up. “Like some sort of dating ritual?”

 

“No,” Sirius said, shuddering. He explained, “Sirens are very greedy. They want as much advantage as they can. Demon favors are very valuable.”

 

“Mm. Would you do him a favor?”

 

Sirius laughed with distaste, keeping the knowledge to himself that he fondly kept every rock in a secret hoard. “He’ll give me something shiny every time I see him, but if I ever had you with me? He’d drown you without a thought.”

 

“Rude,” Lupin mumbled. “But respected.”

 

“Your lack of self-preservation is truly, truly horrifying.”

 

“Thanks.”

 

“Like, really. Really horrifying.”

 

His punished human stretched his neck back fully and laughed. A small, private sort of giggle. He seemed to savor it for a few seconds after, eyes closed and smile content. Sirius bit down on his tongue, unable to hold eye contact when Lupin twisted back to his computer.

 

An orca pod traveled closely past someone on a kayak in the computer screen. Lupin made fewer jabbing remarks through the next round of videos, his sleepy eyes closing and opening and closing and opening before he knocked out.

 

Closing the computer and setting it on the coffee table, Sirius then carefully stretched Lupin’s body out until his limbs laid across the whole couch, his head cushioned better against the armrest. Placing a blanket over him, unfortunately, was too bold of a move to make.

 

Unable to put it off any longer with his punished human asleep, Sirius shifted and gave into his true nature. For the first time, Sirius believed it hurt more to release the darkness into Lupin’s head than to have kept the excruciating energy inside himself.

 

**_February_ **

 

“How do you live with all these sticky emotions?”

 

“Huh?”

 

“You. Humans. Gross feelings. How,” Sirius asked. He stopped himself from prodding Lupin’s thigh with his foot just in time, adding,“Eat more.”

 

Lupin ignored the second half of Sirius’ demand, focusing on the first. “We put all the feels inside a nice box inside our chest and then—die.”

 

Sirius grunted, slapping his hands to his face and harshly dragging them down to pull at his human skin. Lupin eyed him through the dramatics. “Eat,” Sirius said firmly at the end.

 

In perfect imitation, Lupin grunted and dragged his hands against his own cheek’s skin, spurring Sirius into a loud bark of laughter.

 

☽☽☽

 

Since the green tablets, silliness increased exponentially during the time between consumption and sleep.

 

☽☽☽

 

“What in the literal hell are you doing?”

 

“Watering my eyelids,” Lupin deadpanned.

Sirius considered this—Lupin pressing a cold glass of water to his left under eyelid. It concerned him for two reasons. One, his punished human’s stupidity now reached alarmingly high levels. Or two, if humans did water themselves, then his punished human hadn’t been watering his eyes for _months_.

 

Sighing, sounding both exasperated and amused, Lupin said, “Joking. I’m tired and the cold wakes me up a bit.” He switched the bottom of the glass to the other eye. Wetness clung to his left eye.

 

“...Does that work?”

 

“Eh.”

 

“I thought you took the green pill to help you go to sleep.” The last thing Sirius needed was for Lupin to stay up all night—even Sirius’ human form suffered from the growing dark energy inside, his head dizzy and vision blurry with his demon aches.

 

Placing the glass down, Lupin scrunched his face up, disgruntled at Sirius’ reminder.

 

☽☽☽

 

“I want to be a farmer,” Lupin piped up. Sirius did his best to not physically perk up. Even with how chill his punished human got at night now, he still was more inclined to silence. He either said nothing for two hours straight or he ranted passionately for fifteen minutes without a breath, there was no in-between.

 

“Doesn’t it take a lot of energy to run a farm?” Sirius asked.

 

“So?”

 

“Lu—” Sirius cut himself off just in time. “You barely ever leave this apartment. I don’t think you’ve stood up for more than five minutes collectively.”

 

“This is true,” Lupin agreed easily. At the beginning of the next episode, he said, “What about a cactus farm? Cacti. Cacti farm.”

 

“ _What_?”

 

Lupin wiggled his toes, his feet propped up next to the computer. “I wouldn’t have to water them so nothing would die.” He threw a side-grin at Sirius. “And think about the aesthetic.”

 

Lupin taught Sirius about aesthetic last week. Apparently Sirius’ was ‘roguish grunge bum’.

 

 _“And what about you?” Sirius had asked, crossing his arms._ Bum _, he had thought with grumbly thoughts. Rude._

 

_“Tired Bisexual Man Trying His Best.”_

 

“You already have a cactus,” Sirius said flatly, “and it’s dead.”

 

“What? No I don’t.”

 

Sirius pointed to the windowsill five feet away. He raised a taunting eyebrow—a fun trick he figured out recently. He took giddy pleasure in how sarcastic-loving Lupin could only raise both while Sirius perfected the more judgmental one eyebrow.

 

“Oh, shit. Rodrick,” Lupin spoke softly. In a louder voice, he faced Sirius. “How is he dead?”

 

“It’s shriveled up.”

 

“All he needs is a little water. A little slorp.” His punished human chuckled to himself. At Sirius’ single eyebrow raise, he explained, “Slurp—like a sip.”

 

“ _Y_ _ou_ need a little slorp.”

 

“You’re not wrong.” Lupin shrugged, obviously not going to change that.

 

Sirius flopped his head back on the couch cushions, making a strangled sound.

 

☽☽☽

 

“Nice shirt,” Lupin complimented the next night.

 

“Thanks,” Sirius said, ignoring how warm his cheeks felt despite no anger being present. He conjured a shirt displaying a brightly colored cactus, very much alive. He even imagined a little smiley face onto it and a watering can.

 

☽☽☽

 

With all the twists and turns, Sirius should have been used to the abrupt metaphorical slaps in the face by now. But things had been going _so well_ that he refused to think it could change for the worse again.

 

His punished human’s sleeping schedule, which increased in time bit by bit, took a sharp downward turn.

 

One night, he refused to speak with Sirius, his muscles so incredibly tense for a whole three hours. He played the T.V. show, but his eyes spent all the time quickly glancing at the corner of the room and then staring down into his lap.

 

The night after, he dozed on the couch but jerked violently awake every ten minutes, flailing to grab his phone and shine the light on the surroundings around him, his eyes wild looking. Every time Sirius tried to release the nightmares onto his punished human, the dark energy ricocheted back out and into Sirius when Lupin jerked awake.

 

Two days of no rest later, Lupin paced the apartment, shaking his whole body every time he blinked for longer than five seconds.

 

Lupin knocked out for a whole seven hours the next day.

 

He also poured the rest of his green pills down the kitchen sink after.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I most definitely do not support stopping and restarting pills! Anxiety meds are sometimes immediately prescribed to people with severe panic, so Remus isn't technically wrong about saying going on it so suddenly wasn't bad. BUT going on and off medication is not a good idea and messes with effectiveness, especially if it's an addictive drug like Remus is taking (Klonopin, a benzo).
> 
> you can follow me on tumblr here [siriuslysarcasticremus](https://siriuslysarcasticremus.tumblr.com/)


	4. best friends (March)

**_March_ **

 

 _I don’t have someone like that,_ Lupin had said the second time Sirius visited him in human form, when Sirius suggested someone watch over him while he slept.

 

Except, his punished human most definitely lied. Sirius, after watching Lupin revert back to being a lump under blankets again, decided to take things into his own hands.

 

“Fuck this,” Sirius said in the plane between humans and Creatures, unheard by Lupin. He already regretted what he was about to do. “Fuck this _so hard_.” He expelled the dark energy into the bedroom, watching Lupin’s body absorb it, and promptly teleported across the city and into the apartment of one James Fleamont Potter.

 

☽☽☽

 

Sirius might not have looked into his punished human's life story all those months ago, but he _did_ look into the basics of James Potter the second he strut through Lupin’s door on Sirius’ first day on the job. He wasn’t an Innocent but he did have his own reputation among the demon community, both Dark and Light. In Sirius’ opinion, he was simultaneously too chill and absolutely had no chill at all. Unfortunately, he appeared to be Lupin’s closest friend. He’d been absent from Lupin’s life for the past several months, however, and that made Sirius think lower of Potter than he already did.

 

It was both a testament to how desperate Sirius was to have come to Potter and a testament to who Potter was that Sirius wasn’t surprised to find Potter strolling naked around his apartment.

 

“Oo—Holy shit,” Potter clutched at his chest hair, “where the fuck did you come from?”

 

 _At least he believes I’m a real person_ , Sirius thought. A good start. Impatiently, he bypassed the question by asking a more important one. “Are you a friend of Lupin?”

 

“Am I—Remus? Ah, fuck.” Potter frowned to himself. “Did Emmie give you the key? I told her to only use that for emergencies. I mean, I wouldn’t mind a prank, but as far as pranks go, this is pretty lame. How’d the center know I’m back in the city?”

 

Sirius disappeared and reappeared ten feet away.

 

“OH, FU—” Potter reached blindly for something to grab and slipped onto his ass when nothing magically came to his side. Sirius got an eyeful of something he’d rather not have seen.

 

☽☽☽

 

“Wait,” Potter said, dressed and decently covered for the most part. His shirt’s armholes dipped low enough that you could see three-fourths of his torso’s sides. He held up his phone. “Smile!”

 

Sirius blinked. “What?”

 

“Meh, not bad.” Tapping something out on his phone, Potter sniggered quietly to himself.

 

“What are you doing?”

 

“Uh, checking to see if you’re real? Duh. Remus has told me about hallucinations before but, man, this is so weird. I took a photo of you and you showed up in it _but_ that doesn’t necessarily mean you are real,” Potter mumbled this part under his breath, his overt confidence absent, “because I could be imagining you in the photo.” He perked back up with a smug grin, saying, “So I sent it to a friend—”

 

“You can’t do that!” Horror clenched in Sirius’ stomach—he hated shifting into human form but at least he could change that in a second—a photo would immortalize this appearance.

 

“Well, I did.” Potter shrugged casually. “So, I sent it to a friend and—oh, there we go.” Potter swiped his thumb across the phone. He stared at it for four seconds and then burst into laughter. “Saving that.” He looked up to Sirius. “You’re an eight out of ten but you could give a ten a run for their money if you gave this,” he gestured to all of Sirius, “a little more work. Apparently. Okay, wow. So you’re real.”

 

Sirius wanted to bash his head open on a rock. Fuck numbers, whenever humans brought numbers in, it never made sense. “You can’t send photos of me to people!”

 

“Calm down. It was a Snapchat and they didn’t even screenshot.”

 

Sirius turned invisible, screamed out his frustration in the Creature plane, and came back. He took satisfaction in Potter’s startled jump.

 

“Damn. So, what are you? Are you my fairy godmother? Because I really needed you, like, three years ago.”

 

“No, I’m Lupin’s sleep demon.”

 

Potter paused, raised his eyebrows, and then nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah, okay. So, what do you need from me?”

 

So his self-preservation was only _mildly_ higher than Lupin’s. Sincerely, Sirius asked, “What is wrong with you people?”

 

“So many things. Back to the point! What’s going on with my lovely Rem. He’s been ignoring my emails, but he texted he was fine when my plane landed.”

 

“First of all, he’s an absolute disaster—”

 

“Amen.”

 

“—and I can’t believe he’s left to his own devices!” Sirius channeled all his energy into committing to his human form, seconds away from shifting into full-demon from fury. “You’re a terrible friend.”

 

Potter’s posture went rigid and hostile within seconds from where he sat on an expensive-looking couch. His spacious well-furnished loft spurred Sirius’ anger, solidifying Sirius’ opinion that he was a terrible, neglectful friend. “Hey, fuck you,” Potter said, his voice loud but controlled. “You don’t know anything. Yeah, maybe we’re both disasters—” it took Sirius a moment to realize _we_ meant Potter and Lupin, not Potter and Sirius “—but we look out for each other and I’d die for Remus. I don’t care if you’re a demon, I’ll fight you if you ever say anything bad about him or imply I don’t care for him again.” Flipping his hair with a flourish, Potter came to an end.

 

“You’re a terrible friend,” Sirius said instinctively on the principle of being told not to do something. “Did you know he doesn’t take his medication?”

 

Potter jumped to his feet, his voice uncontrolled and screechy. “Wait, _what_? Ah, shit, shit. Grab my keys. Where're my shoes? Hey! Demon-man! Get my keys, no not those, the ones by the door!”

 

☽☽☽

 

“Remus I’m-About-To-Get-My-Ass-Kicked Lupin, open the door right now.”

 

Through the apartment door, Lupin’s muffled voice said, “Remus is not here right now to answer your call, please leave a message after the beep.” Pause and then in monotone, “Beep.”

 

“Remus.” James laughed. “Not fair, no making me laugh! C’mon open up.”

 

A disgruntled sound came through the door.

 

“Open up in the next ten seconds or I’m camping out in your living room for the next week.”

 

After a series of clicks, the door swung open to reveal an annoyed and sheepish Lupin. “Hi.”

 

“Sike,” James said, pushing his way in, “I’m camping out in here anyway.”

 

“I know,” Lupin said, resigned and shutting the door.

 

“Hey, Moons,” James said gently. He gathered Lupin up into a tight hug, smacking a loud kiss to Lupin’s temple.

 

Lupin’s body stayed slumped and dejected but his face lit up like the sun. “Hey.”

 

“We have loads to talk about. I’m thinkin’ Thai and Pizza? What ice cream do you have, by the way? Oh, I left Dr. Jan a voicemail on the way over. You know what, I’ll just run down and grab some ice cream around the corner while you shower. Also, a new ‘Unusual Experiences’ group starts up in eleven days, I added you to the email subscription list. I didn’t pack any clothes, so I’ll just grab your laundry bag and shove it in the washer on my way to get ice cream, ‘cos I’ll be wearing your stuff. Why are you standing there? Come on, get in the shower.” James, who had paced the apartment layout, casually peeking at the kitchen and bedroom, taking in the main room’s messy state, came to a stop and looked at Lupin for the first time since he began his speech. Pointing his finger at Lupin, he snapped his fingers and asked, “Uh, what do you think, two Iced Teas or one? Three?”

 

After a silent beat, Lupin quietly admitted, “Two.”

 

 _Likes ice tea,_  Sirius noted. His human’s skin pinked slightly, maybe embarrassed about consuming or spending money on two things? Sirius would buy Lupin six ice teas but James nodded, proving he was far inferior at taking care of Lupin than Sirius was. Or would be, if Lupin allowed Sirius to take care of him.

 

Sirius became nothingness—Lupin hadn’t even looked at him once since both he and Potter stepped into the apartment.

 

☽☽☽

 

Sirius hovered over the sea, holding an impatient demon hand open. A pudgy fist broke through the surface, slipping a rainbow rock into Sirius’ palm. A rather small and round head appeared soon after.

 

“Thanks,” Sirius said, mulish.

 

“I eat someone?”

 

Sirius considered Potter. He sighed heavily. “No.”

 

Peter sunk back under, his eager teeth disappearing.

 

☽☽☽

 

Lily Called to Sirius _again._ In their entire existence together, she’d Called him four— _maybe_ five—times tops.

 

Terror consumed him.

 

Knowing she’d come to him if he ignored her any longer, and knowing the danger that’d put him in with the Council, Sirius surrendered, allowing his being to be pulled to Texas. He tentatively walked to the park bench Lily sat at.

 

Her lips tightened into a thin line. She showed no other acknowledgment to his presence as he sat next to her.

 

Sirius couldn’t remember the last time Lily had been in North America. He adjusted into a comfortable sitting position, scanning the children’s park to find who she scouted. He hoped his silent apology by coming to her straight in demon form, not putting up his front as nothingness, would melt her cold shoulder.

 

If not, he could wait her out.

 

The sweltering heat pressed down on them. Closing and opening his fists, Sirius focused on looking past the humidity, trying to ignore how the suffocating heat exactly mirrored the feeling of when darkness filled inside Sirius. All his senses amplified as a demon, so much so that it felt nauseating compared to the dull human form he was getting so used to.

 

Sirius pictured Lupin’s apartment, the gloomy look outside the windows and the frigid air-conditioned rooms. Uncurling his fists, he moved his mind away from the oppressing heat, taking in the rest of Texas. Other than a young couple and their two-year-old, the park consisted of five teenagers. Four of them hung out around the swings, one boy guffawing and two girls snickering. The last girl idly swung her feet, looking up at the sky. She was the only one with an Innocent aura, exceptionally bright. It flickered weakly and each time it blacked out before coming back, Sirius doubted her status as an Innocent would stay much longer.

 

Fitting, Sirius thought. Seeking teenagers surprised him, as Lily preferred children greatly, but he saw why the Innocent girl drew her in.

 

The three teenagers paused in their giggling conversation, looking to the wishy-washy Innocent expectantly. Two beats passed and shyly, she said something, looking relieved and pleased when the trio burst into laughter. Her aura flickered furiously.

 

A pang of sadness ran through Sirius. _Gross._ Sirius didn’t pity humans. He pitied their stupidity—but he didn’t _feel_ for them. A sharp pain exploded through Sirius, sourced from his foot, where Lily crushed her heel into his foot. Politely clasping her hands in her lap, Lily angled her body farther away from Sirius, drawing her eyes to the fifth teenager. A short and frail girl with knobby knees and a choppy haircut sat underneath the play structure. Sirius envied the cool shade she hogged under it.

 

The girl’s chest pushed out with the considerable effort for a deep breath, deflating slowly. She had a quiet and sad beauty with enormous brown eyes, a little upturned nose, and beautiful dark skin. Her big eyes glued onto the Innocent girl and Sirius had an excellent view of the yearning consuming her.

 

“Gross,” Sirius said.

 

Lily snorted.

 

Forgetting all about their silent contest, Sirius defended, “She’s too young to want a mate!”

 

Lily broke. “Oh my—how are you like this? You are so—so _outdated_ ,” Lily disappeared from the human plane to hide her endless giggles. She covered her face with her hands.

 

“Shut up,” Sirius said, happy to knock her with his shoulder now that they were both invisible to humans. She uncovered her face to shove him roughly, hiccuping with giggles.

 

It felt _so good._ Sirius had gone so long without any touch, unable to even brush against Lupin without him freaking out. He beamed as he punched her lightly.

 

“Oh, stop it! I’m so mad at you,” Lily said, grinning fiercely. “No, I am! I’m angry. I’m angry.” She took a few deep breaths, a human tick—they didn’t need air. Her face slowly sobered. “I was so worried about you. You were supposed to check back in.”

 

Sirius hunched his shoulders in, glancing to the decaying Innocent, at her farmer overalls and abundant freckles. “I’m sorry.”

 

Lily crossed her arms, unimpressed. “You are, are you?”

 

Being in demon form, Sirius rolled his eyes into the back of his head and out again. “Yes,” he said louder.

 

“Sure, roll your eyes backwards at me. Silly me,” Lily threw her hands up, “panicking over your safety.”

 

Sirius leaned his head back, staring up at the endlessly blue sky. He considered—to hell with it. He’d been going human for months and shown himself to a _second_ human a few days ago. What did he have to lose?

 

Plus, a heart-to-heart sounded deeply uncomfortable and he much preferred actions over words.

 

He held out his hand. Lily stared at it with faked dumbness. Whining, he flapped it around at her. “C’mon. Throw me a bone. Just take my hand for fuck’s sake.”

 

“If you insist.” She shrugged. When their skin brushed together, Texas fell away and a loud Latin American band swarmed in their vision. The sky’s gorgeous darkening indigo sky twinkled with strung up lights in the town outside of Madrid.

 

“Wh—”

 

Sirius shushed her and pulled them together, dipping and spinning her. In the minds of the people dancing around them, they had been there the whole time and were friends of a friend of a friend.

 

“You’re in the human plane,” Lily said, matching his forward steps with backward ones.

 

“Yep.”

 

“Human form.  _Visible_.”

 

Dryly, Sirius said, “I noticed.”

 

Lily’s human green eyes never were as spectacular as they were as a demon, in Sirius’ opinion, but tonight he liked them in a way he never had before. A deep forest green glowing with joy and soft in the gentle dark night. Full of wonder.

 

“I haven’t seen you like this in so long,” she said, drinking his human form in.

 

“Don’t make this weird.”

 

Lily laughed. “Let’s make it weird. Stop making your body match the humans. Dance with me on your own.” She let go of one of his hands, stepping out of their rhythm and starting her own.

 

She shook her hand through her red strands, shimmying her shoulders and swinging the one hand still joined with his. It took a lot of coaxing and yanking, snorting and teasing, but eventually, she got him to try dancing without relying on his powers.

 

“Get it,” she said to him, her face sweaty and happy.

 

He shuffled his feet, his arms half-raised as he rocked his shoulders. “I hate you!”

 

The music was fun and fast and intoxicating. Lily earned some rather enamored looks from others and Sirius knew he was getting a few smoldering ones as well, something that made his skin crawl and he tried to ignore.

 

At a slow song, they came back together. Lily led this time, Sirius looming over her and stepping on her feet. “For someone so squeamish watching a young crush,” she said, “you’d think a wedding venue would be the furthest thing from mind.”

 

Sirius glanced at the newly-weds, sneaking disbelieving and astonished looks at each other from across the reception area. He curled his lips and shuddered.

 

Lily laughed, laughed even louder as he stumbled over her foot when she stopped moving. She let go of his hip, placed her palm to his cheek, and dragged her thumb across his skin. So much smoother and softer than demon skin. “You’re becoming so human,” she said softly. “And yet, you are so clueless with their world.”

 

“You’re my best friend,” Sirius said, something so true and yet never said. A human concept.

 

“And you, mine.” She pressed up on her tiptoes and kissed his nose. “Now it’s time for you to go, isn’t it?”

 

The tug calling him to his punished human’s Perimeter pulled with renewed vigor at the reminder. With a crooked smile, he tipped his head to her and disappeared.

 

☽☽☽

 

Lupin’s kitchen had a window sill, a tiny sink, a stovetop oven, and a fridge-freezer all crammed together in a tiny space. The counter that separated it from the main room stretched from the wall next to Lupin’s rarely used desk and stopped a few feet from the kitchen wall, leaving a small entrance.

 

Sirius appeared in this small gap, still human and visible, having forgotten to change into nothingness while transporting back.

 

“Oh, hey,” Potter said. He sat on the counter, his legs up and stretched across the kitchen length to rest his feet on the sink opposite to him. “What have you been up to?”

 

Sirius debated exiting the human plane. The frustration that had sapped out while he visited Lily came rushing back. For the past two weeks, Sirius hung out within the Perimeter but kept out of the apartment, roaming the building’s hallways and snooping on neighbors. He couldn’t stand watching Lupin and Potter being all chummy and Potter doting upon him, leaving no space for Sirius in their new life.

 

In a horrible split decision, Sirius walked backward to where his punished human slept on the couch, drooling onto the armrest. Potter held Sirius’ gaze as Sirius touched Lupin’s skull. Lupin seized up, shaking slightly before stilling again, a little frown now on his face.

 

Sirius pulled his finger back—he _touched_ his punished human in _human form_ , he gave him nightmares by _touching_ his soft skin, he _touched_ him in a real way while giving him darkness—and stood, staring blankly at Potter.

 

This was who Sirius was. What he was. This is what he did.

 

— _he’d never done that before with his punished human, it was too intimate, too personal, too real, he never gave him nightmares by human touch, how could he have done that, what kind of mo—_

 

“Do want to see a really fat dog?”

 

“What?” Sirius had the decency to hush his tone, stepping away from the couch. Potter beckoned him back to the kitchen.

 

“Look,” he said, dropping his legs to allow Sirius safe passage to the window. “Across the street by the lamppost. It’s so fat. I love it.”

 

The dog was indeed quite fat, disproportionately so with a round belly and tiny head, stumpy legs. Its tongue lolled out.

 

“James,” Potter said, holding his hand out.

 

Sirius stared. “I know.”

 

“Shake my hand, dude.”

 

Humans were infinitely stupid. Potter—James—just saw Sirius do that horrible thing and he wanted to touch Sirius’ hand. The very same hand?

 

Sirius took it. “James,” he repeated, letting go.

 

“And that’s Remus.” James nodded to Lupin, shivering in his sleep. “Not Lupin. I think you’re beyond the Last Name Phase.” His teeth were perfectly straight and his left cheek dimpled with the smile.

 

“Remus,” Sirius said, testing this name out more slowly. “Best friend?”

 

“Best friend,” James agreed. He slid his ass off the counter and stood, grabbing Sirius’ shoulder and squeezing. “Thank you for coming to me. You should show yourself more.”

 

For a moment, Sirius almost blurted out his name to James. He forced his mouth closed, watching as James woke Remus and guided him to the bedroom.

 

Sirius shifted into nothingness, escaping from the uproar of human-feelings. His being already began feeding on the dark energy surrounding the world, filling him back up.

 

Drifting next to the kitchen window, Sirius watched a young woman untie the fat dog from the lamppost. He remembered the kids from the park, struck with the notion that Lily hadn’t been there for the flickering Innocent girl at all, but for the yearning one in the shade.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fun fact that didn't make it into the story: The Thai ice tea is a code between James and Remus about how badly Remus is doing. Bad = two Thai ice teas and 3 = very bad. Sirius, completely oblivious to this, one day makes Remus a shit load of tea with ice cubes dumped in, thinking that was Remus' greatest wish in the world to have.
> 
> you can follow me on tumblr here [siriuslysarcasticremus](https://siriuslysarcasticremus.tumblr.com/)


	5. fight me a.k.a. Is This How You Make Friends? (April-May)

**April**

 

“That’s not true,” James said. Both arms were thrown over the back of the couch, highlighting how lazily he took to this conversation. A conversation that meant so much to Sirius.

 

“Yes, it is,” Remus said, unmovable.

 

“Is not. Totally not true. Nope.”

 

“Is, too.”

 

“Is not.”

 

“Is, too!”

 

“Is not!”

 

“Is, too!”

 

“Is not!”

 

“Is not,” Remus said, switching sides suddenly.

 

“Is, too!” James yelled, flipping his answer as well, though seemingly unaware of it. Remus shouted a victorious _aha!_ and crossed his arms. James spluttered through nonsensical syllables before settling on a groan. “Ugh. You tricked me. Okay, okay, I concede.”

 

Remus smiled. “Thank you.”

 

Sirius looked back and forth between them. “What?”

 

“Remmy’s right, I do pretend to see or hear his hallucinations, sometimes,” James said. “Why should he take my word that you’re real?”

 

Sirius most definitely did not think about Peter’s eating offer. “You’re supposed to be on my side!”

 

James lifted his hands up briefly from behind the couch in a type of shrug. “What? He makes a good point.”

 

Sirius growled lowly before shifting on his feet to face Remus. “I’m _real_ ,” he pleaded. “Listen to Po—James. He sees me, too!” Avoiding Sirius’ gaze, Remus shook a hand through his hair, a habit he picked up since James returned. Sirius pointed at James, demanding, “Make him take a picture of me and send it to your friend again.”

 

The couch creaked ominously as James shifted, pushing his feet into Remus’ side. At the contact, Remus’ wildly shifting eyes focused solely on James. “Hey, you know what, Rem?” James asked. “Why don’t we watch that movie you were talking about? You let the Hallucination—” Sirius growled at the term “—hang out with us and we won’t talk about it anymore. I like him,” _ugh_ , “so I say he stays.”

 

Squinting at James, his lips bunched up in a weird grimace, Remus surprisingly considered the offer. James pushed his feet repetitively into Remus’ side until Remus shoved him away, saying, “ _Fine._ ” At James’ whoop, he added, “But. We’re watching Blackfish instead.”

 

“WHAT. You know that movie makes me cry!”

 

“Take it or leave it.”

 

“Take it,” Sirius butted in, flashing his demon eyes at James, careful to keep the view away from his punished human. James grinned, more excited than intimated by the ghastly sight. He agreed to the movie Remus chose.

 

Pride swelled up in Sirius. His human was so good at bargaining.

 

It made the sour human-feelings about Remus refusing to believe Sirius was real, even with James backing Sirius up, a little more bearable.

 

When James loudly declared he was getting water and putting popcorn in the “microwave”, Remus finally, _finally_ looked Sirius fully in the eye.

 

“Hi,” Sirius said, a little shy, his human-stomach twisting up. They hadn’t hung out since James initially arrived.

 

“Hey,” Remus said quietly. He didn’t smile, but his voice was unusually warm.

 

“Miss me?” Sirius asked, trying for cocky confidence.

 

Remus huffed. “Just come sit down. You’re making me nervous just standing there.”

 

Sirius’ spirits soared.

 

☽☽☽

 

Sirius smugly started the movie— _documentary_ , Remus had corrected, and Sirius was overjoyed that Remus still wanted to teach Sirius human terminology—sitting firmly between his punished human and James. By the end of the documentary, he sat far closer to James, nearly clinging onto him—James had attempted to grab Sirius, but Sirius swatted him away.

 

“This is just so fucking _sad_ ,” James said.

 

“Catharsis,” Sirius said sympathetically.

 

“Fucking catharsis,” James scoffed.

 

Remus shushed them.

 

“Humans are so dumb,” Sirius whispered.

 

“So dumb!”

 

Potter might be marginally okay-ish. As far as humans go.

 

☽☽☽

 

Next time Sirius dumped the dark energy, he sought out a pod of orcas in Washington afterwards.

 

The matriarch puffed air out of her blowhole, either on coincidence or miraculously knowing Sirius floated there as a nothingness supernatural Creature.

 

As nothingness, the gush of air did nothing to Sirius except pass through him, which was an upsetting feeling.

 

_Rude._

 

☽☽☽

 

James moved out of the apartment but instead of crossing back to his side of the city, he simply lived four floors above them—above Remus.

 

“Your dad owns the building?” Sirius asked, his excitement about James’ declaration of leaving dissipating immediately. Despite his reluctance to converse with James, a human who was not his, Sirius had no choice but to chat with him since Remus tended to speak little when all three of them were together.

 

“Uh, yeah?” James said as if that was obvious and meaningless. “Anyway, there’s always an apartment for me on the top floor. So, building-mates!”

 

Well, it explained why Remus had such a nice apartment in a building with great security.

 

James begged Sirius to help move stuff from his other apartment into this one with his “super-duper magic demon powers”. Sirius turned invisible in response. Two days later, when James heaved a suitcase into his new apartment, Sirius teleported the mouse that had crept into Remus’ apartment and dropped it on James’ head.

 

☽☽☽

 

Annoyingly, James popped by so much he basically continued living with Remus.

 

Sirius was in no way bitter at all that James successfully forced Remus into eating. On another note, James now always opened the door when Delivery suitors came and Sirius no longer had to defend Remus’ virtue.

 

He’d leave James’ virtue to the wolves.

 

Sirius also would like to point out that _he_ was responsible for getting his punished human to drink water, which was extremely important. Definitely more honorable than getting Remus to eat.

 

☽☽☽

 

James might have caught on to Sirius moving the water glass around the apartment, shadowing Remus invisibly during the day, and laughed.

 

Sirius _might_ have replaced James’ glass of water with lemonade at his bedside after having eavesdropped on James complaining how gross his medication tasted when swallowed with the acidic juice.

 

☽☽☽

 

“What are you doing?”

 

Sirius threw one last suspicious glance at the front door. “Where’s James?”

 

“He’s not coming tonight,” Remus said. The corner of his lip ticked upward when Sirius harrumphed.

 

James had been eerily absent lately and Sirius didn’t trust it.

 

“I don’t trust it,” Sirius said.

 

“Jeez,” Remus said fondly. He had chilled out with Sirius hanging out with him and James, even if he still deemed Sirius as a hallucination. However, while James loved including Sirius, Remus always became stiffer. Right now, he smiled and chatted with Sirius like he used to. “Don’t make me say ‘calm your shit’,” he warned.

 

No matter how crazed James was, energized or grandiose, he deflated immediately when Remus neutrally said, _James. Calm your shit._ The number of times Remus utilized that phrase was frankly outstanding.

 

“Our T.V. show?” Remus prompted Sirius, pulling Netflix up on his computer.

 

Sirius perked up, leaning over to peer at the little people on the computer screen. “Zombies?”

 

“Mhm.”

 

“Yes!” Sirius fist-pumped the air—something he learned from James two days ago.

 

Remus blinked at the action and then cracked up.

 

“What! What’s so funny!”

 

“Nothing, nothing.”

 

“What,” Sirius demanded, half-offended but more charmed by his punished human’s amusement. “Did I do it wrong?”

 

“No.” Remus shook his head, laughing under his breath as he turned the volume up for their show. “No, you did it perfectly correct.”

 

**_May_ **

 

James, as it turned out, wasn’t half bad.

 

Sirius liked to visit him during the day, thankful that his upstairs apartment was in range of the Perimeter. Sirius didn’t realize exactly how frustrated he was that Remus thought him to be fake until he started hanging out with James. Being taken seriously and not freaking out from touch was amazing. James constantly put his feet up in Sirius lap, punched him without a second thought, and carelessly touched him all the time.

 

Sirius upheld the assessment that James remained a disgrace to humankind and was a traitorous asshole that loved to laugh at Sirius’ blips at being a human.

 

But.

 

“Are you my friend,” Sirius burst into James’ apartment one night.

 

James clutched at his chest, reflexively kicking his leg out and launching the remote across the room. “What the fuck, man?” If it weren’t for the seriousness of the matter, Sirius would enjoy how easily James scared. “Duh, you dweeb.” James snorted. “Of course we’re friends.” He roughened up Sirius’ hair.

 

“Ugh,” Sirius said, scowling as he tried to flatten his human locks. “Not my friend!” he declared irritably as he teleported back to Remus’ place.

 

Remus stared at Sirius’ sudden appearance on the couch. “Um?”

 

“Humans are dumb,” Sirius stated and went invisible.

 

Five minutes later, the door jingled and then opened. James’ voice called, “Tell your Hallucination he’s dumb!” and then the door slammed.

 

“The literal fuck?” Remus murmured to himself, taking the glass of water Sirius had set out for him and using it to water the very dead cactus, Rodrick.

 

☽☽☽

 

“You’re like a touch-starved feral cat. I try to pet you and you _swipe_ at me.” James sniffed, upturning his chin.

 

“Fight me.”

 

“Stop saying that!”

 

“Fight. Me.”

 

“Argh! Remus, look what you did,” James said, jabbing his finger in Sirius’ direction. “Stop teaching the feral new phrases. It’s too much raw power.”

 

“You’re too much raw power,” Remus mumbled flatly as he scrolled on his laptop.

 

Taking the fuzzy blanket draped over the couch, James rubbed the soft material over Remus’ cheek. “ _Moony_. Pay attention.” Remus pulled out of his reverie, looking mildly startled. “He’s doing it again.”

 

On cue, Sirius bared his teeth at James, keeping them rounded now that Remus was alert and looking. He hissed, “Fight me.”

 

“Oh,” Remus said. James waited expectantly. “...so?”

 

“He’s antagonizing me on purpose.”

 

“You’re very antagonizing-worthy.”

 

“Does no one in this godforsaken apartment love me?”

 

Sirius and Remus shared a glance, staying silent.

 

“Fine,” James said, shoving his hands under his armpits and burrowing between couch cushions. “Be that away. Teach your pet mean phrases to spit at your best friend.”

 

“Fight me,” Sirius gloated.

 

The sheer unbelieving rage on James’ face and the incomprehensible sound he made brightened Remus up. “My imagination only procures the best,” Remus said, consolingly, and patted James’ knee with a wink.

 

A look of glee crossed James’ face. _Imagination,_ he mouthed at Sirius.

 

Sirius sneered at him. It may be an insulting compliment, but a compliment nonetheless. Remus might think Sirius was a hallucination  _but,_  he thought Sirius was _‘the best’._

 

☽☽☽

 

“What.” Sirius turned in a slow circle—still within the Couch Perimeter—and took in the apartment. “Remus, what.”

 

Remus crossed his arms and raised his eyebrows, giving Sirius a bland expression.

 

“Remus, _what_ ,” Sirius repeated.

 

“I stepped out of the apartment,” Remus said as if that explained everything. Well, it explained why Sirius had felt a small tug on his Punished Human Perimeter while Sirius was at James’—he had just assumed it was a fluke.

 

“Clearly,” Sirius said flatly. He wished Remus knew he was real so that he could hug Remus, because going outside? That was a _huge_ deal. And maybe that did deserve a reward which could explain—

 

“Rodrick is lonely,” Remus went on, patting the tiny blue pot containing said cactus. Surrounding Rodrick were five new cacti on the windowsill. They were in various shades of green and had a various number of—arms? One just had a single fat body-arm and another next to it had about ten small tentacle-arms.

 

Oh, and on a small side-note, twelve _more_ cacti littered the apartment, from the kitchen to the coffee table to—Sirius expanded his knowledge through the apartment, finding two on the bathroom sink and four on Remus’ book stack shelves.

 

“Rodrick is dead,” Sirius said, mind reeling. He’d left Remus alone for thirty minutes. How did he—where did he—how much money? Why?

 

Remus set his jaw tight, his eyebrows stern and mouth twisted. He placed his hands on his hips.

 

Sirius curled his shoulders inward under the disappointment, sinking his considerable height down. Lamely, he pointed at one of the cacti that had a bright yellow bulb on top, and said, “That one is pretty.”

 

With a small, gratified smile, Remus nodded once sharply. “That’s Rhonda.”

 

 _Lily, help me,_ Sirius despaired.

 

☽☽☽

 

The next day, Remus put on a pair of overalls with no shirt underneath and pulled out a palm-sized water-can and sprinkled little droplets on every pot.

 

Being that it was daytime, Sirius could say nor do anything.

 

He didn’t know if that made things better or worse.

 

☽☽☽

 

James strolled in the apartment four days later—he’d been caught up at work and too tired to visit Remus’ apartment, preferring to contact them through video on the computer at night.

 

James, a three-minute walking journey away from them, was ‘too lazy to make the trip’, as he had said every time. Three minutes. Too lazy.

 

_Humans._

 

It took James forty minutes and a trip to the bathroom before he noticed the change.

 

“...Moons,” James’ voice called.

 

Remus made a loud huffing, questioning sound.

 

“You have two cactus—cactuses. Cac-c-t-s—you have two pointy plants in your bathroom!”

 

“Congrats, Sherlock,” Sirius called out. He looked to Remus and preened when his punished human gave him an approving nod for the reference.

 

Hair not-artfully ruffled, James appeared in the hallway. “What happened to Rodrick?”

 

“He’s just over—”

 

“ _Dead._ ”

 

“—there. Oh, fuck off.” Remus made a slapping motion to the air next to Sirius.

 

“Oh, he is there,” James said in surprise, coming to investigate. “And more friends!" He spun on his heel. “Woah, so many friends. Neat-o. I mean, not like I’m worried or this is an indicator of mania or anything.” Remus eyed the ceiling and James snorted. “I get to name a few, right? Am I a godfather?”

 

“ _I_ am the godfather,” Sirius said, having no grounds of which to say so.

 

“More like _dog_ father you big dumb doof,” James said, plopping down on the couch and elbowing Sirius into the corner away from Remus.

 

“You can name that one,” Remus said, pointing to the fat stump cactus.

 

“Sweet. I’m naming him _Prongs’ Thigh_.” Remus watched James take in a big breath with bone-deep disappointment. “Because _boy_ they _thick_!”

 

“What?” Sirius said, long since throwing out trying to decipher James’ meanings through context.

 

“James. Jamie. Prongs.” Remus placed a hand on James’ thigh. “You got chicken legs.”

 

“What?” Sirius repeated, enjoying that James was being insulted but wanting to enjoy it more by understanding the insult.

 

“But—I— _leg day._ I’ve been doing leg days! My thighs are like—”

 

“Little sticks,” Remus said.

 

“—uber _thick_.”

 

“Uber?” Sirius echoed.

 

“You don’t want to know,” Remus said to Sirius.

 

☽☽☽

 

“Fuck, I wish I could just...fucking smash some cranberries with my feet.” Remus sighed, deeply invested in watching the commercial on juice brands.

 

“Thicc Mood,” Sirius dropped the statement.

 

Remus did a triple-take, blinking more rapidly each time he extended his neck backward. James toppled off the couch laughing.

 

“Thick with two _C'_ s” Sirius added.

 

Remus’ lips parted.

 

“I t-t-told you-you,” James heaved out from on the floor. “The power is too raw!”

 

James might have been the one to enlighten Sirius on this human culture, but Sirius couldn’t resist baring his teeth and saying, “Fight me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you can follow me on tumblr here [siriuslysarcasticremus](https://siriuslysarcasticremus.tumblr.com/)


	6. epiphanies (June)

**_June_ **

 

The more James plastered himself into Remus’ routine, and Sirius’ by extension, the more bad human-feelings festered within Sirius. At first, he disregarded it, assuming the discomfort came from the usual pain of holding in dark energy too long. (Remus slept two to six hours every night, which left Sirius operating on one-third or two-thirds of dark energy at all times with a nearly nonexistent resting period).

 

Since Remus refused therapy and the “Unusual Experiences” group, James took to poking Remus about his moods and feelings and other gross things. Sirius attempted to tune it out as much as possible and he thought he succeeded but now he was becoming... _self-aware._

 

Some type of mushy and yucky human-feeling stuck with Sirius. If he wasn’t such a lonely loser, he’d go into nothingness for a year to escape this. Fortunately and unfortunately, Sirius remained clueless in recognizing emotions—he just knew he was having them.

 

Sirius had lived a long existence of willful ignorance and intended on keeping it that way.

 

He had lived so long in nothingness form, talking only to Lily every year or decade, that it became easy to forget he was...not a person, exactly, but a _something_. He was a something that was real. James barreling into Remus’ life solidified that concept to Sirius, despite Sirius’ efforts to stay in oblivion.

 

James even treated Sirius like he was as valid as any other person he had met.

 

Slowly, shifting into human form actually felt more and more like turning into a human, now. It didn’t feel as if he was still nothingness living in a husk of human skin, it was like he actually had flesh and bone and weighed heavy. It almost felt as right as it did when being in his true demon form.

 

Touching Remus’ head to transfer the dark energy became even more taboo because of this. In fact, Sirius found himself delaying the general transferring process more and more these days. Overwhelming relief overcame him when Remus’ breathing finally evened out, but Sirius continued feeling sticky and gross even after he released nightmares. Sometimes, he waited a whole entire impossible hour while his punished human slept before he expelled the dark energy.

 

Usually, he liked to stay inside the apartment and close to his human even when the Perimeter opened and he could go anywhere in the world until the Perimeter called him back. Now, he found himself rushing to leave immediately after nightmares entered Remus’ head, choosing to go wherever popped in his mind first—James’ apartment, more often than not, but one time he teleported to an empty parking lot in Idaho in panic.

 

He also gave up on trying to push James into convincing Remus of Sirius’ realness and that his story of being a sleep demon actually checked out. In a way, Sirius sort of… _preferred_ that Remus think of him as a hallucination.

 

☽☽☽

 

James groaned one night, pushing his glasses up into his messy hair and rubbing his eyes. “You ever feel so guilty you could throw up?” James asked rhetorically. He slid his glasses back on and leaned back in his desk chair, running his hands through his hair. “I know I can’t make her come into the center, but I just feel like she’d be such a good fit, y’know? Maybe I can have one of the girls talk with her.”

 

Sirius suspected James talked his thoughts aloud whether Sirius was in the apartment or not. He usually didn’t care if Sirius even listened, letting Sirius walk around the apartment and play with things, stick his head in the freezer, turn water taps on and off. Tonight, Sirius needed more of a distraction so he listened intently as he fiddled with a stress ball. James’ workplace had a few open slots to take on new mentally ill people and a girl had slept under the awning of their building a few nights but refused to come in, despite James explaining all therapy and psychiatry was free and they helped a lot of other kids with housing, too.

 

“Don’t feel guilty,” Sirius offered in advice. He meant it—James poured his soul into his work with youth. He had nothing to feel bad about.

 

James blew a raspberry. “Easier said than done.”

 

“True,” Sirius mumbled, tossing the ball up and catching it. Not like he knew anything about guilt, though. Thank the stars for that. Sirius had no intentions of living with such a dark, _bleh_ feeling like guilt. His hands were already full dealing with this new dark, _bleh_ emotion and—oh.

 

Oh, no.

 

☽☽☽

 

“Hear me out,” Sirius said.

 

“That sentence always leads us somewhere good,” Lily commented.

 

“Piss off.”

 

“Oh, new phrase. That one suits you very well,” Lily said, expelling light energy into the human child sleeping in a small room with four other foster children. The little child shifted in their sleep, absorbing the energy, and Lily smiled softly as the kid’s rigid muscles relaxed.

 

Well, this was the ideal place to be while having a guilt crisis, Sirius grumped about in his head— _fucking Light demons._

 

“Hear me out,” he started again. “Why should a hypothetical person feel guilty if another hypothetical person didn’t even believe that first hypothetical person was doing a thing that was very arguably bad to second hypothetical person but second hypothetical person might be forgiving anyway about said doing of terrible thing.”

 

Lily, having the insane rare control to how much energy she released, moved onto one of the other children, gifting them a few sweet dreams as well. Her side-eye to Sirius was overly exasperated.

 

“You’re right.” Sirius sighed. “Hypothetical person two wouldn’t be forgiving. No one would.”

 

“Oh, for the love of—Ser, you’re overthinking. I don’t know if it’s better than your go-to of not-thinking, but since you won’t allow me to give you advice if I tried, just allow yourself.”

 

“Allow myself what?” Sirius whined.

 

“Space. Time. To feel. To be happy. Whatever you want, Sirius,” Lily said, allowing the weight of his full name. She touched Sirius’ cheek briefly, and he wished she could transfer Light energy to him.

 

☽☽☽

 

James and Remus sunbathed on the apartment building roof. One of the perks of James’ dad owning the building was that James had a lot of keys to things he shouldn’t have access to. Sirius wished to join them and be in on the bantering but this was outside of the Couch Perimeter and Sirius was banished from existing at any other time than night.

 

“You need to get laid,” James said.

 

“I don’t want to get laid,” Remus grumbled. James had forcibly dragged Remus into the sunlight and he’d been grouchy ever since. Sirius found it endearing.

 

“You so do. You’re in your classic _‘oh my depression is lifting and golly gee what are all these feelings I have and energy and my gosh what are these urges—_ ’”

 

“St _ahp_ ,” Remus said, picking up the sunscreen bottle and tossing it at James’ stomach. “Fine. Maybe I want to get laid.”

 

Sirius floated around the apartment roof, agitated about not being able to ask what _laid_ meant.

 

“I don’t want to pressure you, Moons. I just think some type of physical affection wouldn’t be so terrible.”

 

 _Remus wanted more affection?_ Sirius refused to understand how anyone close to James could feel a lack of touching.

 

“You offering yourself?” Remus asked in a flirty tone. “My, what a proposition, sir.”

 

“Don’t you know it,” James purred.

 

Sirius glowered as they laughed.

 

“Maybe I’ll hit up Benji.”

 

 _Who the hell was_ Benji _?_

 

“Honorary best friend stamp of approval. Slide into their DMs.”

 

“Hm. Later. They’re chill but I’ll check their Facebook page in case they changed their mind on relationships.”

 

“Look at my smart, thoughtful boy,” James cooed, rolling off his towel and over to Remus, flopping on top of him.

 

“God, how are you so skinny and so heavy? The fuck,” Remus groaned out in between strangled breaths.

 

“‘M not skinny, ‘m lean!”

 

 _WHO THE HELL WAS BENJI._ Sirius needed to do some recon. A.S.A.P.

 

☽☽☽

 

“Benji. Info,” Sirius commanded. “Now.”

 

If his mission allowed room for fun, Sirius would greatly appreciate James’ terrified shriek. He bolted upright in his bed, pulling the blankets up to his chest, as if he ever cared for being decent.

 

“What the fuck? Go away.”

 

“I chased away a Dark coming for you tonight. In exchange: Benji.”

 

James pressed back into his pillows, throwing an arm behind his head. “The fuck is a dark? And a Benji.”

 

“Another me. A Dark sleep demon. Nightmares,” Sirius talked slowly. He regretted divulging the information as soon as James woke up more, blindly smacking his hand around for his glasses and then slapping them onto his face.

 

Squinting in the darkness, James excitedly asked, “One came for me? Will I get one, too?”

 

“No.” Sirius didn’t particularly feel like going into the details of being stuck to Remus by punishment. “Now,” he snapped his fingers, “Benji.”

 

“Argh, who taught you to snap fingers. And who is Benji? I can’t believe I’m up for this.”

 

“‘Honorary best friend stamp of approval. Slide into his DMs’,” Sirius recited.

 

“You sound like a robot. Holy shit, do you watch over us always? Bro, that’s creepy.”

 

“I don’t have control,” Sirius admitted, which wasn’t _exactly_ a lie. “Who. Is. Benji.”

 

“Oh, _Benji-_ Benji. C’mon, you may be the winner of forever as touch-starved but Remus craves it, too. Connect the dots.” James yawned. “Also, it’s they-them.”

 

“What?”

 

“We can go over pronouns and shit tomorrow.” James’ breathing began slowing down. Sleepily he said, “Bye.”

 

Sirius conveniently “forgot” to warn James his glasses were still on as he fell asleep.

 

☽☽☽

 

As Sirius walked around the city—invisible to humans and in demon form to think to his best ability—he pushed the edges of the Perimeter. Remus must be having trouble sleeping because the Perimeter didn’t let up, pushing Sirius’ form backward as he walked the circle surrounding Remus’ apartment.

 

By the time orange and pinks bloomed in the watery blue sky, Sirius tentatively—decisively—nervously—came to the conclusion.

 

Remus needed to know Sirius was real.

 

Sirius... _wanted_ Remus to know.

 

☽☽☽

 

Sirius would prefer to ask Lily for advice but Remus’ sleep schedule bounced all over the place, opening up the Perimeter for only a few minutes, if at all.

 

Sadly, that left James as Sirius’ only option.

 

“I’m late, I’m so late.” James snapped his fingers as he raced around the apartment with one shoe on. Sirius frowned at being on the receiving end of snapping fingers. “Talk, talk.”

 

“You don’t have work this early,” Sirius pointed out.

 

“One of the boys doesn’t have a ride so I’m picking him up and it’s _Tuesday_. Bro! You know Tuesdays is my day to bring in donuts and the vegan shop is in the opposite direction from the center.”

 

“I didn’t know that.”

 

“Well. You should. Now, what’s got your panties in a twist? Remus has been a chicken about Benji so far. Hold your romance horses.”

 

“I don’t what ‘panties’ are. Nor do I own horses.”

 

Over a buzzing sound, an aggravated squawk comes from the bathroom. “Whaw y’r gotha be ‘ike t’us.”

 

Interestingly, demon powers could translate anything— _Why you gotta be like this._

 

Planting his ass on one of James’ swivel kitchen chairs, Sirius spun himself in a circle a few times, enjoying how dumb his human eyes were by making the room spin dizzily from the movement. _Stupid humans._ “I’m convincing Remus I’m not a hallucination today.”

 

The running water stopped. James stuck his head out the bathroom door, something foamy on his lips. “That is a horrible idea. Dear fuck, tell me you’re joking.”

 

“Nope,” Sirius popped the p, spinning his chair again. “He’s going to a coffee shop today. I’ll show myself in public and random people will see I’m real and—ta-da!”

 

“That’s—no. The last time Remus had a major hallucination in public it—we don’t talk about it.”

 

“I’m not a hallucination.” Sirius chucked the missing shoe at James’ head, having held it hostage the whole time.

 

Easily catching it, James shoved his foot half-way in and disappeared back in the bathroom. Running water turned on, then off, and then there was the horrible sound of spitting. James rushed out, wiping his mouth, and before he opened his apartment door, he looked Sirius dead in the eye. “Hallucination, _no.”_ He slammed the door.

 

“Sirius, _yes_ ,” Sirius said to himself, traveling through the floors and back to Remus.

 

☽☽☽

 

The coffeeshop bustled about with just the right number of people. A warm vibe filtered in the small shop, and it kept the store from feeling claustrophobic. Someone working behind the counter greeted Remus and Sirius distantly recalled Remus spending his time here in the early days before he chained himself to his apartment, and Sirius chained with him.

 

Nearly vibrating out of his skin with anxiety and excitement, Sirius stepped forward in line. Two people stood between him and the person who exchanged sustenance for cash. Maybe Sirius could use the money he stole from James to buy one of the little pastries for Remus instead of a drink. A cute little cookie _begged_ for Sirius to buy it. All the colorful round little balls decorating it reminded Sirius of Remus’ Innocent soul.

 

“Good morning, what can I get for you?”

 

Sirius grunted at the woman behind the counter, pointing to the cookie.

 

“The sprinkles cookie?” Sirius nodded tersely to her question. “Will that be one or two?”

 

“Two,” Sirius blurted without thinking. He wanted this interaction to be over with. The back of his neck felt wet with sweat—an illusion his human body didn’t need to have. Because he wasn’t human. And yet, here he was. Mister Sweaty McSweat.

 

“Keep the change,” Sirius said, snatching the cookie bag from her hand and thrusting forward a bundle of cash with his other hand. Someone said that phrase in a movie once, so Sirius hightailed it away from the worker and hoped it meant something.

 

The shop moved in slow motion as Sirius looked to the counter people waited at for their drinks.

 

Way too cool looking for his own good, Remus leaned his hip against a wall, thumbing through his phone as he waited for his drink. Sirius paused for an abnormal amount of time just drinking his human in. Someone bumped into Sirius’ shoulder, grumbling like a little goblin as he passed.

 

Right. Mission: My Stupid Human 3.0 in action. (Mission 1.0 was getting Remus to sleep and 2.0 was getting him to eat/drink, both still ongoing and struggling missions).

 

Scanning the shop, Sirius channeled his inner Lily and zeroed in on the frazzled white middle-aged man in a fancy suit. Perfect. Sirius smirked as he took the chair opposite to the man, forcing him to share the small table space. The man scowled at Sirius, huffing overly loud as he pulled his computer closer to himself. He tucked his briefcase away under his legs as if Sirius would steal it.

 

The table next to them, two girls—Sirius wasn’t good with guessing young ages—stole glances at Sirius before whispering furtively with each other. A young man sitting at the shop's window counter checked Sirius out as well and Sirius couldn’t help but flush a little under that specific attention, oddly.

 

As long as no one approached him, Sirius could keep his calm. He preened under attention, knowing his demon-ensured good looks made him devilishly handsome with the outfit he procured for himself. He copied a man he saw on the street from earlier with tight navy blue jeans, black boots, a white shirt with a leather black jacket carelessly thrown on, and hair pulled back into a messy bun.

 

 _I’m gonna grow my hair out and have a man-bun_ , James had said a few nights ago, _and then none of you losers can stop me._

 

Watching all those shows and movies turned out to be excellent training—Sirius cleared his throat and leaned toward the two girls enamored with him, biting his lip. One of them looked at him with enormous blue eyes and the second smiled a little stiffly, seemingly less interested in Sirius now that he approached them.

 

The second, wary girl asked, “Can we help you?”

 

“Uh, yes,” Sirius said, purposefully throwing on a sheepish facade. “Can I ask a favor?”

 

The girl narrowed her eyes and as she said _depends_ , the first girl with the blue eyes said, _yes, of course._

 

“Do you see that boy standing against the wall? With the moppy brown hair and red shoes?”

 

The girls nodded.

 

Sirius bit his lip again briefly, ducking his head and looking up at them through his eyelashes. Inside his mind, he went wild— _Lily would be so fucking proud of me right now, holy shit, holy shit!_

 

With a nervous voice, he asked, “Do you think you could give him these cookies for me?” He held the bag containing his sprinkle cookies out, throwing a little tremor into his hand. His cheeks naturally rosied pink on their own, not that he’d admit it.

 

The girls absolutely melted and Sirius mentally released a relieved breath—he read them right. “Oh my god, yes,” Blue Eyes said.

 

“Do you want us to say it’s from you?” The previously suspicious one asked, warm and a little excited.

 

Mr.Nice Suit typed furiously on his computer across from Sirius, practically slamming his fingers on the keys. Sirius spared him a look before nodding at the girls. Leaning back in his chair, he watched the girls scurry to Remus, who just picked up his drink from the counter. He slumped minisculely as the girls approached him. His lips parted in surprise at whatever they said to him, his cheeks coloring.

 

All three turned to stare openly at Sirius and Sirius gave a little wave, trying to contain the bubbling laughter building inside him. His lips quivered with the effort but he managed to give a flirty smile as Remus did a double-take. Sirius wished more than anything that he could hear whatever he stuttered out to the girls.

 

“Good luck,” the girls said to Sirius, winking, as they rushed back to their table and grabbed their things to go.

 

Remus walked to Sirius’ table slowly and then stopped in front with a jerk. “Uh, hi?”

 

“Hey,” Sirius said.

 

Remus looked around the shop, as if checking to see if this was a filmed prank. “Sorry,” he apologized to Sirius, a cute furrow between his eyebrows, “you just look like someone…”

 

“—you know?” Sirius guessed, grinning.

 

“Um. Sort of, yeah. Thanks for the cookies,” Remus said.

 

Finally, Mr.Nice Suit butted in, “Excuse me. Could you take this somewhere else?” he sneered.

 

“Of course,” Sirius replied smoothly, standing up and taking Remus’ hand, leading him out of the shop. Remus twisted his head back, looking at Mr.Nice Suit in shock. He continued his dazed silence as they walked. People grumbled at Sirius when he knocked into them and Remus stared in wonder as Sirius kept up a conversation with someone about their dog while waiting at a crosswalk.

 

Sirius threw himself into every opportunity of interacting with other humans.

 

At some point, Remus snatched his hand out of Sirius’ and walked briskly, forcing Sirius to run to catch up. His stomach bottomed out knowing Remus realized it truly was Sirius by now and not just someone who looked like Sirius. Sirius counted it as a win that Remus wasn’t on the ground freaking out about hallucinations, but he felt his not-real heart skyrocket at Remus’ reaction.

 

Remus knew he was real and blamed Sirius for giving him nightmares because now he knew it was the truth and not imaginary and, _oh he hated Sirius he was never going to want to hang out with Sirius ever again because he hated him, he couldn’t even stand to look at Sirius, they were never ever going to watch movies again and Sirius would have to watch someone named Benji touch Remus and—_

 

They entered the building and stood in the elevator in thick silence.

 

Only when Remus closed the apartment door behind him, did he react.

 

☽☽☽

 

“I’m sorry—I’m so sorry, it’s just,” Remus heaved in a big breath, “you used to say the small people—did you really think little people were trapped in my computer?”

 

Even if Sirius wanted to huff in offense at Remus, he couldn’t. Remus hadn’t stopped laughing for the past fifteen minutes and it took over his whole body, a deep belly laugh. He sat on the couch—their lovely, amazing couch—wiping at his eyes, his grin nearly as wide as Sirius’ own as he waited for an answer.

 

“This is a trick question,” Sirius answered uncertainty.

 

Remus let out a loud whoosh of exhaled laughter. “God, we really need to step up our teaching game. We’ll cover cinematography and actors tonight, okay?”

 

Darks and Lights only inhibited three forms—nothingness, human, and demon—but Sirius swore in this moment he developed a new form because he was seconds away from melting into a puddle onto the ground. Having Remus’ twinkling eyes staring at him with so much more intensity than before—it made Sirius’ insides go all squishy. “Yeah,” he agreed a little breathlessly. Thank everything that James wasn’t here because he’d be having the time of his life watching Sirius’ reaction. “So,” Sirius steeled himself, “you really...aren’t mad?”

 

Sobering up, Remus reached out and pulled Sirius down onto the couch. His criss-crossed legs pressed into Sirius’ thigh. “No. Not about the...nightmare stuff or whatever. I’ll probably break down later when it hits me that you’re real, though.”

 

Sirius shrugged. “Fair.”

 

Sheer horror dawned on Remus’ face. “Oh my god, you’re real.”

 

“Uh,” Sirius laughed, a little nervously, “yeah, we established that.” He thought a breakdown later would actually be...later. Like, hours or days, not seconds.

 

“No, no, I mean—you’re _real_. Oh my god, I haven’t been feeding you! And you’re here all the time, oh god where do you sleep? You can take my bed. At least tell me you’ve been sleeping on the couch. Have you been cold? Why didn’t you ask for blankets—water! Shit, have you been thirsty all this time?”

 

Sirius grabbed Remus’ arms, stopping him from running his hands frantically and repeatedly through his hair. Pulling his punished human’s arms down, Sirius then took hold of his hands, giving them a squeeze. “I’m a demon, Remus.” Sirius grinned stupidly. “I don’t need any of those things. I don’t need sleep or food or drinks. I make myself _look_ human. Calm your shit, okay?”

 

Remus’ lips turned up in a hesitant smile at the last phrase. “Shit,” he said.

 

“Yeah.”

 

A brilliant smile lit up Remus’ face. “I’m probably going to ask a lot of dumb questions.”

 

“Probably,” Sirius agreed.

 

“Not as dumb as _your_ questions, but…”

 

Sirius regretted letting go of Remus’ hands—had they really been holding onto each that whole time?—though it was extremely satisfying giving Remus a good shove backward. “Rude.”

 

Remus bent over with quiet, breathless laughter. “Okay, alright,” he straightened up, “I know you don’t eat food, but samosas sounds so good right now. Oh, should we text James?”

 

“Nah. We can tell him you pulled your head out of your ass later.”

 

With a snort, Remus nodded, agreeing easy as anything to celebrate this revelation with the two of them alone.

 

A look of delight crossed Remus’ face. “Yes! You can call my orders in for me!”

 

Taking over James’ duty—oh, oh, _oh_ , the fucking satisfaction—of talking to strangers because Remus didn’t care for it was something Sirius had ached to do for so long. He bit his lip for real, not as some ploy for two teenage girls, but to contain the added euphoria that Remus willingly accepted help, asked for it even.

 

Sirius didn't know how life could get any better.

 

☽☽☽

  


“Uh. Why does Sirius look like some James Dean shit bad boy?” James said from the doorway. “Is that a _mother-truckin’ man bun_?”

 

☽☽☽

 

“See, now you don’t have to crave touch anymore,” Sirius explained, a few days later when he rubbed Remus’ feet. Remus surprisingly gave into the new tactile relationship with Sirius quickly. “You don’t have to contact Benji. You can hug me—anytime.”

 

A strange expression crossed Remus’ face and he opened his mouth, closed it, and then gave Sirius a small smile. His expression turned strangely pitying as he said, “Yeah, okay.”

 

**_July_ **

 

Remus tossed a raisin at Sirius’ head. Hanging out with Remus during daylight hours turned out to be a strange adjustment. The instinct to hide and hover caused him to flicker in and out of invisibility when he didn’t pay attention. The next raisin went through Sirius before he got a hold on his solid form.

 

“You’re supposed to be eating those,” Sirius said, catching the next and chucking it back at Remus.

 

“I don’t even like raisins.”

 

“Then why are they in your cabinets?”

 

“Impulse buy?” Under Sirius’ disapproving gaze, Remus rolled his eyes and ate one, dramatically scrunching his face up in disgust before swallowing. “You know,” he said, “I guess I can’t call you Hallucination—”

 

“Fuck yes,” Sirius said.

 

“—anymore. But you haven’t given me your name,” Remus said, head cocked.

 

Sirius shrugged, trying not to tense at the question.

 

A sympathetic look crossed Remus’ face. A strip of sunlight slid diagonal over his eyes and nose. “We’ll find you a name then.”

 

“Great,” Sirius drawled, knowing _we_ included James’ input.

 

“Shuddup, Raisin.”

 

Sirius blinked. “Raisin?”

 

“Because you’re like a grumpy shriveled up grape.”

 

Sirius poked Remus in the sensitive spot between his ribs and Remus reflexively struck his leg out, kicking Sirius’ stomach.

 

Touch was a marvelous new thing, but an adjustment.

 

☽☽☽

 

Raisin, New and Improved Mother Hen (James was booted to _Rooster_ ; Remus insisted James was still more loud and annoying), Daryl (because of Sirius’ long hair and affinity for zombies; Sirius got a little emotional about that one), Annoying Asshole, Edward Cullen ( _“Please tell me you don’t watch me sleep.” "Uh…no?”_ ), and Sleeper (again, zombies; _“I don’t even sleep.” “Want me to call you Demon-er?” “...touché.”_ ) were the favorites of Remus’ new collection of nicknames for Sirius.

 

James refused to call Sirius anything other than Rick.

 

“Why?” Remus had asked originally.

 

James had taken that deep breath that always put the bone-deep disappointment on Remus’ face in anticipation. “Because he’s _never gonna give you up,”_ James belted, “ _never gonna—_ oof, fuck! Can’t you take a meme?”

 

☽☽☽

 

Life went up on this high. Remus woke up in between sleep to jot down ideas for things he wanted to do with Sirius. Despite never having the energy to go outside for himself, Remus loved taking Sirius out of the apartment.

 

“There’s just so much to do,” he kept saying.

 

☽☽☽

 

“Library,” Remus said as they walked, elbows hooked, down the sidewalk. “I’m so glad I chose to live this close to one. This is brilliant for you.” They had spent the day exploring the circumference of the Perimeter that locked in place when Remus stayed in the apartment. Sirius knew it by heart, easily showing Remus the endpoints North, South, East, and West of the apartment. He didn’t understand why Remus was so insistent on finding things for Sirius to do while still stuck in the Perimeter—Sirius enjoyed spending every minute watching over Remus. “So when you get bored or if I want alone time, you can come here. They have computers you can use and you’ll love the books, I bet, because you’re a fucking nerd.”

 

“Better than a dork,” Sirius butted in.

 

Remus rolled his eyes. “I think you’ll get a kick out of kids books.”

 

They spent two lazy days in a row at the library. At the ending hours on Sunday, Remus yawned and slumped into Sirius. “This is nice. I’m usually too anxious to come here alone, but I really do love libraries.”

 

“Bean bags,” Sirius eloquently responded.

 

“Yes, I know.” Remus sighed. “Unless you make James buy some, just come here and hang out on them.” Catching the look in Sirius’ eyes, he added, “No stealing. Of any kind.”

 

☽☽☽

 

“Bean bags,” Sirius said, waking James up.

 

“Call me Sugar Daddy next time I’m with Moony and you can keep stealing my money,” he said, half spoken into his pillow.

 

☽☽☽

 

“What up,” James called, banging the door open. “I’m tired, I’m hungry, and one of the kids came to the center hungover and threw up on me.”

 

“I’m _so_ sorry, Sugar Daddy,” Sirius said.

 

Remus fell off the couch.

 

☽☽☽

 

Computers. Were very. Stupid.

 

Obviously, since humans created them.

 

Despite this, they were very helpful. Google indulged Sirius in his wildest searches and Urban Dictionary traumatized him lovingly and informatively. After looking up D.I.L.F.—Sirius was excited to amend the D to demon—he used the library computers to make a grocery list of healthy foods and dragged Remus to the store to buy the items.

 

“I’ve never seen you go to the grocery store since AmazonFresh became a thing,” James said, smirking. “You’re like a service dog, Rick.”

 

“Shut up, Jamie,” Remus said, his cheeks pink. His glare faded when he turned his gaze on Sirius, saying, “You’re not a service dog.”

 

Sirius looked up service dog later and it warmed his stupid, stupid human heart to be seen as a helping thing rather than something damaging.

 

☽☽☽

 

Sirius’ first time in a car was both overwhelming and underwhelming. He wished it went faster. Remus patiently let Sirius push random buttons for the first few minutes.

 

“No,” Remus said, turning the radio off. “Cars are for thinking or talking.” He cocked his head to the side in consideration. “Or not-thinking,” he tacked on.

 

“Um. Do you like coffee?” Of course, Sirius knew the answer but he didn’t know what to say—something that happened more and more around Remus these days.

 

Remus snorted, as expected. Sirius liked when he could predict what Remus would do. “Okay, the default is thinking and, if not, the talking is _talking-_ talking. Real talk.”

 

Sirius heavily considered banging his head on the dashboard. “So. Weather?”

 

Remus laughed. “No, no. That kind of talking is exiled.”

 

“So, what _isn’t_ exiled?” Sirius huffed.

 

“Hm. Well, James and I once talked for an hour about if our old neighbor’s cat, Simon, was actually a human.”

 

“Is this one of your ‘pretentious bullshit’ things?”

 

Remus groaned. “You shouldn’t listen to Prongs so much.” He twisted his head and gave Sirius a dopey, crooked smile, his head hanging to the side all silly-like.

 

Sirius’ insides crawled uncomfortably but in a strangely not-entirely-unpleasant way. _Too_ not unpleasant. Failing at being a person—because Sirius wasn’t—who could actually respond to fucking conversations, Sirius decided to smirk and kick his legs up.

 

After a while, Sirius slipped into a mental state similar to how he was when in nothingness form. “Not-thinking,” Sirius said, closing his eyes. He missed this. “Nice.”

 

The car filled with silence. They were contained in an intimate bubble solely made of just them and they intertwined as something fragile for as long as they stayed in here.

 

“Yeah,” Remus agreed.

 

☽☽☽

 

“Wait,” James said. “Damn, _finally._ You’ll actually answer questions now that Moony knows! So, why is your human form a white dude? You said this is your only human form.”

 

Sirius calmly replied, “I look exactly like who you are most attracted to. My coloring is the definition of beauty to you. I look differently to everyone.”

 

James grew very silent. Remus, knowing Sirius too well, said nothing, though his lower lip trembled. After several moments, James, in full despair, proclaimed softly, “ _No._ ”

 

“So, he’s white for you?” Remus piped up casually. “He looks like your twin for me. I’d think you were brothers.” As funny as that lie was, Sirius didn’t like the implication, even as a joke.

 

James processed this for a millisecond before punching Remus over and over in the shoulder—Sirius growled very, very softly—and yelled, “You asshole! You voted Jack _Zimmerman_ as having the best ass in college! Firstly—the betrayal for funsies! But now I know it was an outright lie!”

 

Remus dissolved into giggles, uselessly swatting James’ punches away.

 

Caucasians weren’t the epitome of beauty for James—he had asked an answerless question. Sleep demons always came out perfectly gorgeous but how and why a demon looked the way they looked as a human was unknown. Or perhaps it was—demons just never asked questions or cared for curiosity. Sirius believed human forms had to do with the area a demon’s being was birthed. Sirius had no recollection of the origins of his dark energy coming together but Lily insisted she remembered Brazil.

 

Sirius remembered green. A lot of dark green. He thought that was why he found solace in Lily, in her eyes.

 

Remus, when wearing his reading glasses, had green specks in what humans called _hazel_ eyes.

 

☽☽☽

 

“So,” Sirius said, casually picking up a fidget spinner. “Remus is attractive?”

 

“Hell yeah,” James responded instantly. He added, “Well, depends.”

 

“On what?”

 

“Like, he’s not _attractive-_ attractive. If his photo was placed amongst a bunch of hotties, he’d probably be rated lower. But attraction is about aesthetic, you know?”

 

“No.”

 

“He’s got the whole _Soft Intellect_ going. The _Sweet Disaster_. A _Warm Goof._ That _mm-now-there’s-a-man-I-trust._ ”

 

“Trust with what?”

 

“I dunno. Emotions? Sexual desires? Your favorite book that you never lend to others.”

 

Sirius grunted and transported to the library.

 

☽☽☽

 

 _Sexual desires_ , Sirius typed into Google. He glanced around the library; last week a man got in trouble for going on a website that had sex videos. He contemplated Urban Dictionary, vetoing it for Wikipedia instead. He liked Wikipedia. It sounded fancy and had some words in blue that brought him to a page all about that word if he clicked on it.

 

Sexual desires led him to clicking on the blue word _libido._ Libido to  _hypersexuality_ —which referred to Bipolar Disorder, the words James described Remus as—to _testosterone (medicine)_ to _masculinization_ to _puberty_ to _testes_ to _ovaries_ to _fertility_ to _human sexual activity_ to _human sexuality_ to _romance_ to _romance novel_.

 

Sirius’ head swam.

 

☽☽☽

 

He went four days as nothingness.

☽☽☽

 

Remus’ shoulders dropped, relaxing, when he exited the bathroom and saw Sirius on the couch. He sat down and put his feet in Sirius’ lap, not asking about his disappearance.

 

“Do you. Have. Romance,” Sirius spoke slowly, “novels?”

 

“Uh.” Remus blinked several times. “Sure. Yeah, James bought me a bunch of gag gift dime novels.”

 

☽☽☽

 

Many covers of the books had shirtless men.

 

☽☽☽

 

Sirius hoarded the books in the universe pocket where he kept his rainbow rocks from Peter.

 

He didn’t look past the covers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [here's a little blurb on James' POV](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ)
> 
> you can follow me on tumblr here [siriuslysarcasticremus](https://siriuslysarcasticremus.tumblr.com/)


	7. NEW RULE: NO DYING (July)

**_July_ **

 

James’ work center received a grant or something—Sirius only understood that they had received money. This meant James spent more days or half-days at the apartment building.

 

“Like, the new hire is kinda,” James scrunched his face and took a swig of root beer, “annoying. Preppy. She basically screams ‘I just graduated school! Psych 101! I know everything!’, y’know?”

 

Sirius rolled his eyes, pulling at James’ giant rubber band ball and snapping the colorful bands back in place. He vaguely understood based on Lily complaining about classmates a few decades ago.

 

“But it’s good,” James went on. “I’ve been needing time off to work on my visions and shit.”

 

“Cool,” Sirius drawled.

 

“Is your other half asleep? Why are you harassing me?”

 

“You’re harassing _me_.”

 

James pulled a rubber ball from between his couch cushions and chucked it. Sirius went transparent, allowing the ball to pass through him, hit the wall, and rebound to hit James right in the forehead.

 

☽☽☽

 

Sirius wasn’t avoiding Remus. He just...wanted to get to know James more. Expand his human horizons. It went well for a few weeks—Sirius forgetting his worries and itching curiosity—until everything came to a stop.

 

They drove James to his parents’ house. Well, James was the one driving, but the trip was enforced by Remus, who sat in the passenger seat up front. Sirius only came along because of the Punished Human Perimeter. His bitterness at sitting in the backseat alone faded away as he slowly got more and more comfortable, propping his legs up on the other two seats.

 

Sirius failed to see the necessity of the trip but Remus insisted on it. James seemed perfectly fine and well-adjusted—nothing like when Remus flopped into spirals of a human disaster. In fact, James just acted a bit like hyper Remus which, if James wasn’t bipolar, shouldn’t be a bad thing, right?

 

Maybe Sirius was also a little sad to see James go. Maybe.

 

He already missed their nights of binge-watching the cop show while Remus slept and they haven’t even been one night apart, yet. James still sat in the car with them and Sirius missed him. He’d been having fun obsessing over the T.V. show characters with James and dissecting them—it helped Sirius a lot in learning about humans, and their relationships especially. He deserved half the credit of the stories James wrote and posted online and their success.

 

Sirius liked being all haughty and telling James if his writing was “in character” or not.

 

Plus, James introduced Sirius to the joy of crayons as they drew picture after picture of the characters while they watched. Remus probably only shipped James away out of jealousy from James and Sirius reciting lines of the show with perfection and giggling together. Sirius understood the feeling of being left out, but he’d never physically send James away. Maybe think about Peter eating him, but he never did it, so no harm, no foul.

 

One of the small people—actors—on the show smoked, so Sirius knew that was a bad habit. Remus could worry about James in that area, Sirius supposed. But taking up smoking cigarettes chilled James out, unlike now with how he tapped his fingers on the steering wheel and basically vibrated with anxiety.

 

Okay. _Fine_. Sirius maybe, possibly, understood James might be having some episode of some kind. He felt a little guilty about blaming Remus for not being able to look after James like James had cared for Remus during his depression. Sirius wanted Remus to camp out in James’ guest room and mother-hen him. Instead, he had called up James’ parents and helped James pack a duffle bag.

 

In his grumpiness, Sirius quieted down into a simmering pout and by the time he worked through his giant load of stupid, stupid human-feelings, James and Remus were deeply immersed in their own world together.

 

James guided the car from the big long road off onto a smaller road that passed by houses and other buildings instead of long stretches of nothing and gas stations. They passed a long flat building with the words Gryffin Prep High written on a big sign and a little announcement underneath declaring _happy summer!_

 

“Ah, high school,” James sighed.

 

Remus pretended to wipe away a tear. “The good old days of sleeping two hours a night because your brain is trash on fire but you still gotta do the work to get the A.”

 

“Mm,” James moaned. “That feel when you really need that A.” He let go of the wheel to make an O.K. sign with his thumb and pointer finger.

 

“When the teacher says go deeper but you all out of metaphor,” Remus said with a heartfelt sigh.

 

James snorted and Sirius gripped his seatbelt as the car swerved. “Goddammit Remus, you’re gonna make me crash!” He laughed, muttering about _all out of metaphor_. “Fuck, I’m so sad we weren’t BFFs in high school.”

 

Remus saluted the car ceiling. “Thanks, Pops, for shipping me off to college.”

 

“YEET,” Sirius piped up from the back, desperate to be included.

 

Two startling seconds of silence passed in which both Remus and James turned their heads to look at Sirius in the back. The duo burst into laughter.

 

“Pads, if we went to school together I think we would’ve entered a higher plane of meaning,” James said. “One deliciously on fire.”

 

Remus caught Sirius’ eye in the rearview mirror and smiled.

 

☽☽☽

 

James’ parents looked nothing like him, which Sirius knew from having background checked James in the past. James Fleamont Potter, adopted child of the infertile Euphemia and Fleamont Potter. Fleamont’s smile, however, looked extraordinarily similar to James’, infectious and affectionate.

 

Sirius hung back in the car, invisible, and stewed in his thoughts for an hour until Remus returned from the house. With rosy cheeks, Remus got into the driver’s seat and started the car. Sirius believed Remus had no right to look so soft and cute in this situation.

 

“I know you’re upset,” Remus spoke up as they turned back onto the big long road leading back to the city.

 

Sirius materialized, staying stubbornly in the back, and said, “‘M not.”

 

“It’s fine to be upset. I’m sad, too.”

 

Sirius grunted.

 

“Do some research on A-D-H-D,” Remus said slowly. “That’s Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. James is usually alright, but sometimes he gets overly fixated on things when he’s stressed. It’s a red flag before things down-spiral, like me starting to sleep less. He’ll be back soon.”

 

Sirius moved upfront into the passenger seat. “I don’t want him to have ADHD. What’s wrong with liking a T.V. show?”

 

“You love Walking Dead, right?” Sirius nodded, _duh_. “But we don’t watch it all day, every day. It’s not all you think about and do. I know James and I know when an obsession is going to bring him under like a destructive wave.”

 

Sirius mulled this over, slumping into his seat. The sun set and he watched the last remaining light in the sky dwindle away into a velvety blue. “Did I make it worse?” he asked.

 

“No,” Remus said calmly. He reached over and squeezed Sirius’ thigh briefly, leaving behind a hint of warmth. Sirius’ heart raced at the first contact they’d had in weeks. “If anything, it’s me and him that set each other off. When he gets hyped up, it brings out my mania and vice versa.”

 

 _Vice versa_. Great, another thing to look up. Sirius referred to James recently for translating human phrases. He’d rather Remus believe Sirius knew everything. Now he’d have to rely on dumb computers.

 

☽☽☽

 

Google told Sirius that _hyper-fixation_ was a great coping mechanism. But it also told him it could cause failure in productivity for jobs and relationships and blah, blah, blah.

 

Google was one hypocritical bastard.

 

Sirius believed Remus’ judgement but he insisted on giving Remus the cold shoulder for a few days, anyway.

 

☽☽☽

 

“I’m shook.”

 

“Stop saying that,” Remus said without heat, surrounded by mounds of clothes. He said he was “cleaning” his closet, but it certainly didn’t look like that.

 

“I’m shook you’d demand that of me,” Sirius said, placing a hand over his chest half-heartedly. He lounged on Remus’ bed, burrowing further into the lazy mood he’d been in since James left.

 

“Why are you shook?”

 

“Wouldn’t you like to know.”

 

Remus shook his head, smiling. “What do you think about this shirt?” he asked.

 

Sirius _loved_ that shirt. It was big, more of Sirius’ size than Remus’, and therefore hung off Remus’ frame, going down mid-thigh and slipping off his shoulders. It gave Sirius all the squiggly feelings. (Google didn’t mention squiggly feelings—people feel _butterflies_ in their stomach. One, _what_? Two, _gross._ )

 

Sirius focused and switched his conjured cactus shirt into a replica of the shirt Remus held up. “I don’t know, what do you think?” Sirius took immense satisfaction at the surprised, awed look on Remus’ face.

 

“Right. Sleep demon. Forget that sometimes,” Remus said, busying himself with folding the shirt up and placing it in what Sirius assumed was the keep pile.

 

“Is that good or bad?”

 

“I like you however you are,” Remus said flippantly, and then hummed over a pair of pants.

 

Sirius blurted he was going to the library and left before Remus could even respond

 

☽☽☽

 

James shrieked and Sirius clamped a hand over his mouth. He flicked the bedside lamp on without touching it and James squeaked under Sirius’ hand.

 

“Argh,” Sirius said, yanking his hand back after James slobbered all over it. Glaring at James, Sirius wiped his hand on the quilted blanket.

 

“What are you doing here?” James asked.

 

“Remus is sleeping and I’m bored.”

 

James sunk back into his pillows, ruffling his already terrible bedhead. “How’s he doing? With his sleep.”

 

Sirius shrugged—he was used to the ache of pain, it didn’t change much if Remus slept a few hours more or a few hours less. “I don’t know. Fine, I guess. How are you?”

 

“Good,” James said, smiling. It was a tired grin, a different exhaustion than the type from being woken up in the middle of the night. Sirius wondered how he hadn’t picked up on it before. “You should research bipolar.”

 

“Argh,” Sirius moaned. He already had ADHD to research and then his—other searches. Switching subjects, he demanded, “Entertain me.”

 

James made kissy sounds.

 

Sirius smothered him with a pillow.

 

☽☽☽

 

“Shook,” Sirius mumbled to himself, clicking through pages on Bipolar Disorder. He read about how it had the highest suicide rate among mental illnesses and he never teleported so fast in his life.

 

☽☽☽

 

“This is ridiculous,” Remus insisted, trying to worm his way out of the blanket burrito Sirius wrapped him in. Sirius had read online being wrapped in a heavy blanket was very calming.

 

“Drink,” Sirius said, pushing the glass of water to Remus’ mouth. Remus’ said something garbled against the glass. Ignoring this, Sirius tilted the glass, forcing water to drip into Remus’ mouth. “And you’re eating healthier.” Trying to soften himself, Sirius added, “You are very loved and important.”

 

Remus nudged the water away after a few sips and gave Sirius an incredulous look. “What’s got into you?”

 

Sirius lightly smacked Remus head and sternly said, “No dying.”

 

☽☽☽

 

On day three of Sirius’ mental illness epiphany, Remus said, once again wrapped up like a fuzzy burrito, “I have never been more proud or frustrated with you handling emotions. But,” he gave Sirius a severe look, “if you stop mothering me, I will tell you the next level of shook.”

 

Sirius considered. “What’s stopping me from looking it up myself?”

 

Calmly, Remus said, “Because this way you can snuggle with me while I show you the video.”

 

This was a very good point indeed.

 

☽☽☽

 

“So, what have my babes been up to? My doses have been changed and your bae is coming back next Tuesday,” James sang through Remus’ computer. “So get out the mimosas!”

 

“For all us bitch ass hoes,” Remus agreed.

 

“Remus,” Sirius chided at the language, genuinely scandalized. “I am _shooketh._ ”

 

“Dear fuck, please kick out the Meme Machine before I get there. He doesn’t even pay rent.”

 

“Fight me.”

 

James ended the call.

 

☽☽☽

 

Despite Remus protesting and evading all care-taking Sirius forced upon him, Remus ate up all physical affection. Once he realized Sirius was real, he jumped right into playful touches with Sirius like it was second nature. Now, though...Remus basically used Sirius as a personal heat warmer and teddy bear.

 

Sirius didn’t know if it was due to the lack of James-loving, but he damn well wasn’t going to question it. It both helped him get used to the squiggly feelings emerging and made them infinitely worse. He refused to call it butterflies, however.

 

Sirius partially wondered if it was some type of reward system—Wikipedia had gossiped to Sirius all about service dogs and how they were trained to do tasks with positive reinforcement. Man, Sirius _really_ loved Wikipedia. It made _some_ sense; the less helicopter mom (Sirius’ newest vocab term) Sirius was, the more affectionate Remus was. But if Remus was Pavlovian conditioning him, then that meant Remus knew how touch-starved Sirius was and that set off red alarm bells and made Sirius disappear in panic for sixteen hours.

 

Eventually, he concluded that Remus would never do psychological manipulation and Sirius released the huge human breath he’d been holding and came back.

 

A voice in Sirius’ head told Sirius it was rude and hypocritical that Sirius didn’t mind playing psychological manipulation on Remus. Frustratingly, the voice now sounded not just like Lily, but _also_ like James.

 

But it wasn’t manipulation! Sirius wanted Remus to take care of himself; there wasn’t any malintent or anything.

 

...so, Sirius took the positive reinforcement via touch idea and used it on Remus every time Remus did self-care. (Forced Sirius-care upon Remus was the first step on the path to self-care).

 

“Good,” Sirius said, patting Remus on the head after he finished his microwave meal. Two weeks ago, Sirius finally learned what a microwave was and how it worked. He adored it. Why did his poor stupid human not eat when he had access to such an easy mean of cooking? Sirius greatly worried about where Remus would be if Sirius hadn’t been assigned to him.

 

Remus grumbled and shoved Sirius’ approving hand away. Sirius went with it easily before snuggling closely into Remus’ side.

 

☽☽☽

 

Sirius thought that with James gone, there’d be less pestering about Sirius’ background. Apparently, James handed over the mantle to Remus because when Remus lied in bed at night, he never fell asleep until he asked at least ten questions.

 

“Is there a God?” Remus said after six minutes of silence where his heartbeat had slowed down—ruining all of Sirius’ hopes that he’d be able to dump the frantic dark energy soon.

 

“Wikipedia is my god,” Sirius deadpanned.

 

☽☽☽

 

It was a lazy day, and a good one. Remus kept up his cuddle-neediness and he laid next to Sirius.

 

“What’s it like,” Sirius asked. “Being bipolar.”

 

Taking Sirius’ arm, Remus traced his finger up and down the inside of Sirius’ forearm in a zig-zagged line. “Like this,” he said. Dragging his finger in an upward swoop, Remus elaborated, “This is me going happy.” He followed through with the swoop as it then curved downward. “And this is me sad.” He absentmindedly repeated the movements over and over. “Happy, sad, happy, sad. But it’s more complicated than that. It’s like, happy isn’t always happy. Sometimes I’m really angry or impulsive or restless or so energized I feel like I could explode. Productive. And then—for me, at least—it’s like I walk right off the edge of a building and _splat_ on the ground. There’s never any middle ground once I get really high up.”

 

Sirius frowned deeply, his chest flaring up emotionally. “That’s not fair.”

 

Remus laughed. “No, but that’s what it’s like on this bitch of an earth. I’m always paranoid when I feel good because I’m just waiting for the crash to happen.”

 

Sirius considered this and asked, “What about voices?”

 

“Psychosis?” Remus shifted and shrugged, visibly closing off. He fingers stopped tracing swerves on Sirius’ arm. “When I’m depressed I have hallucinations and when I’m manic I have delusions. Not always, just when it’s...bad.”

 

Wildly grasping for a subject change to soothe his punished human, Sirius said, “And James is just an asshole.”

 

It gained a surprised, soft chuckle. “No,” Remus said. “No, sorry. I mean, yeah. He’s a jerk. But he’s got his own issues. It’s much, much rougher than he makes it seem. That’s why he suddenly went home.” He caught Sirius’ eye and smiled. “Just makes it harder to reign in his inner asshole. I’m sure you can sympathize.”

 

Sirius squawked. “Sympathize!”

 

☽☽☽

 

“Am I an asshole,” Sirius asked as soon as he popped up in the middle of a charity marathon.

 

Lily ran faster, expecting Sirius to keep up the pace with her. “You really want to open that can of worms? Because I’m ready. You know I’m always trying to point out the elephant in the room.”

 

Sirius scowled but nodded.

 

“You’re an asshole,” Lily said confidently. She stopped pumping her arms and held up a hand with four raised fingers, putting one down with each declaration she said. “Depressed. Guilt-ridden. Traumatized. Anger issues.” She side-glanced at him, slowing down her pace a tiny bit to take his hand and squeeze. “You have to hold yourself accountable when it makes you lash out,” she said firmly.

 

“What about you, huh?” Sirius snapped without much heat. He’d been going human for so long that sweat beaded on his forehead despite his fake form not needing it. “What’s wrong with your human brain?”

 

“Sirius, it’s not your human brain. You carry, and have carried, this always. In every form. Your nothingness form is just dissociating, darling.” Her sad eyes turned mischievous as she answered, “And, a lady never tells.”

 

“You’re not a lady.” Even in human form, Lily had always enforced the sleep demon genderless identity, no matter the era.

 

“Technicalities!” Lily shouted as she started sprinting, losing Sirius in the crowd.

 

☽☽☽

 

Sirius made a special note in his mental catalogue— _depressed, guilt, traumatized, anger._ More issues to research later. His romantic novels now had a competitor for which subject he’d procrastinate longer.

 

☽☽☽

 

“What about hell?”

 

“Remus, go to sleep.”

 

Two minutes later: “Isn’t there some guy named Lucifer? Do you know him?”

 

“ _Lucius?_ ” Sirius screeched. “You think he’s some important figure? What the fucking rumors is he spurting around—Remus! Stop laughing! This isn’t funny and you’re supposed to be sleeping!”

 

☽☽☽

 

Remus requested Sirius stay out of the apartment for a few hours. It was the one downside to Remus realizing Sirius wasn’t a hallucination—now there was a lot of fuss about “privacy”. Sirius vaguely explained that he could go into a nothingness form where he practically didn’t exist. It was information he definitely shouldn’t have confessed. No consequences have happened so far with Sirius revealing his identity to humans, but Lily had been hammering into his skull that he needed to be as careful as demonly possible with this punishment.

 

Remus still insisted Sirius leave.

 

Two hours into waiting at the library, Sirius grew fed up and came back to the apartment invisibly. He slipped into nothingness mode, making sure to be as blank as possible.

 

“...I can’t wait for you to get back,” Remus said.

 

Sirius dialed his focus back to Remus, pushing through the foggy haze of relief from pain lessening in this form. His human must be talking to James.

 

“...it’s really sweet, but it’s driving me nuts. He’s leaving little Post-It notes on mirrors and my computer and the fridge and—no, shut up,” Remus said, pacing aimlessly and smiling down at his feet. He had little wires in his ears and he held up the main wiring that plugged into his phone to his mouth as he spoke.

 

Remus woke up crying two mornings ago and he had banished Sirius to the library for _five hours._ After Sirius fumed in the book stacks for a bit, he learned how to do online forums and read about people with mentally ill significant others. Sirius wasn’t clear on what a significant other was, but he qualified as pretty significant in Remus’ life, if he did say so himself. And he did.

 

There were many, many, many forums on depression. Sirius had clicked through all of them—because he had _five hours_ to fill—and found a suggestion to put little notes around the house with compliments and nice sayings.

 

“He even put one that said _smile_ on the toilet seat and he drew a little smiley face on it,” Remus said. “No, I shit you not, he drew a smiley face.”

 

Emotions were dulled down in nothingness but the faint impression of smugness coated Sirius. He took four tries until he had been satisfied with that smiley face. Tonight, he was going to go bolder and draw a little heart on one—not with a _you’re loved_ phrase, that was far too bold to combine the two. Maybe with _it gets better._ Hm, _you’re wonderful_ , if he felt adventurous.

 

“He’s taping up printed out pages of coping mechanisms and lifestyle advice. James, there’s a list of cognitive distortions next to my bedside. Cognitive. Distortions. Yeah, I know, I’m impressed he knows how to print, too. ”

 

All of this was true and Sirius floated around, thinking happily to himself that he should sneak around and eavesdrop more.

 

“I’m going to go crazy if he keeps doing this—” _wait, what?_ “—can’t you come back Monday so he can bother you instead? I need a break.”

 

☽☽☽

 

“Hey, where have you been?” Remus, the traitor, smiled at him. “I took a nap waiting for you.”

 

“I know,” Sirius said. He had released a nugget of dark energy during the impromptu nap.

 

After a few beats of silence, Remus asked, “What’s wrong?” His worried eyes raked over Sirius and he pushed a hand through his hair, ruffling the back up. “Are you still mad about human privacy issues?”

 

Sirius crossed his arms.

 

“If you’re going to be upset with me,” Remus said, settling more comfortably between the couch pillows. “Then you might as well tell me. I can’t read your mind.”

 

“I can’t either,” Sirius said, which was mostly true.

 

“That’s good to know,” Remus said, his voice actually sounding relieved. Honestly, what did Sirius’ punished human think of Sirius? He understood the boundary of mind-reading, for fuck’s sake. “Padfoot, what’s wrong?”

 

“Padfoot,” Sirius repeated, snappish. “What does that mean?”

 

“I’ve been calling you that for a few days, I thought you knew. Remember the cat feet photos?” Remus prompted, soft and cautious.

 

Sirius nodded—James sent a text in all caps that said TOE BEANS with little cat paw pictures attached. A little jealous of the instant happiness it brought Remus, Sirius had called the phrase stupid—they were just toes. No one cooed over human’s single-pad feet. It was such a flippant comment that Sirius hadn’t remembered—he even researched the phrase padfoot after Remus started saying it. Now Sirius looked like a complete, forgetful idiot. _Fantastic._

 

“That’s a stupid name,” Sirius said, hating himself for the hurt way Remus curled in on himself. Vindication tasted too sweet right now to stop. “Humans are stupid. _I_ should be the one needing the break from _you_.” Sirius suppressed the urge to growl and disappeared.

 

☽☽☽

 

The door banged open. “DOSES,” James shouted, shaking a plastic bag filled with pill bottles.

 

In the time it took listening to James fumble around with the key to open Remus’ apartment door, Remus had run to the kitchen and grabbed a bag of flour and expired orange juice.

 

“And mimosas,” Remus yelled back, sliding on his socks out of the kitchen, brighter than he’d been in days. Sirius physically felt the energy in the apartment amp up.

 

“Champagne,” James sang, holding out a small glass bottle. Remus looked surprised and James looked expectant, breaking out into a pleased grin when Remus threw a handful of flour in James’ face.

 

“And cocaine,” Remus finished flatly, which James found hilarious.

 

Sirius watched the whole exchange from the windowsill, invisible in his demon form. His arms had been perpetually crossed the past day and a half, as were his feelings.

 

“Now, where is that punk ass fuck—damn, that’s a _fantastic_ nickname for him, why have we not thought of that?” James slung an arm over Remus’ shoulder, yanking him in for a hard side-hug as he pushed him forward to the main room. “Is he still doing the cold shoulder? Hey,” James talked louder, “are you in here, you punk? Stop being a party pooper!”

 

Sirius would have allowed his hiss to reach the human plane if James was here without Remus, but he kept it in the Creature plane, his chest rumbling with a growl long afterwards.

 

“Fine, more champagne for us,” James said. “Does he even drink? I mean, I know he doesn’t need it but does he want to and just needs a little push from us?”

 

“Did you actually buy champagne, James,” Remus asked, taking both the bag and bottle out of James’ arms and shoving James down onto the couch. He peered at the bag. “Upped Lamictal?”

 

“No to the champagne since I actually take my medications,” James glared at Remus, which Remus studiously ignored. “It’s just bubbly cider.”

 

“Klonopin,” Remus said. “Benzo.”

 

“Yes, congrats Moony, good to know you’ve started retaking one med. And moot point, dumbass. Short-lasting and you only take it at night. It’s noon. A little champagne wouldn’t hurt.”

 

“It acts fast, it’s not short-lasting,” Remus mumbled in an automatic correction. “You’ve been spending a lot of time around psychiatrists, haven’t you.”

 

“Ugh, yes,” James groaned. He kicked the back of Remus’ knee until Remus buckled and fell back onto the couch, half in James’ lap. “Atypical antipsychotics, anticonvulsants, blah, blah, blah.” James fake barfed.

 

“Antipsychotics.” Remus made an intrigued sound.

 

“I _know_ ,” James said. “She wanted to add a new drug, which like— _what._ And then she wanted to up my Concerta but you know how that makes me—”

 

“Mr. Grumps.”

 

“—yeah, thanks. And sleepy. So, I was like ‘bro, no’ and she said ‘don’t call me bro’ and I said ‘yes m’am’ and she gave me some M&Ms. Then it was like _stimulants_ and me groaning and then a forty minute talk about how I could be _depressed_ and that _triggered_ my _hyperactivity_ and _life changes_ and promises to work on _behavior_ and we’d just up my Lamictal a bit and _BAM_ , I’m back. Now, stop fondling my med bottles and no more pill talking or I’ll brain myself on your coffee table,” James finished and took a huge inhale.

 

Remus’ eyebrows receded to his hairline. “Alright,” he said, pressing a sloppy kiss to James’ messy hair. Sirius had a perfect view of the disgusting smile that lit up James’ face. “Want to watch a documentary?”

 

“No,” James whined, dragging out the _O._ “I want some really crappy romance movies and to roast white het couples while stuffing my face with burritos and getting all the cuddles.”

 

Sirius ignored the ache in his heart.

 

☽☽☽

 

“I like Padfoot,” Sirius said.

 

Remus paused rolling in his bed sheets and flipped to face Sirius, squinting adorably in the darkness of the bedroom. Sirius refused to squirm under the attention. An electric tingle went up his spine when Remus’ foot brushed against Sirius’ thigh at the end of the mattress.

 

“I like your notes,” Remus said. “I just need you to tone back on the other stuff. It’s a bit rude.”

 

“How?”

 

“Do you want me to tell you about all the things you should be doing? Or how to be a better demon?”

 

Sirius scowled—a thousand memories popping up of all the people who told him how to be a Dark sleep demon and the times Lily pestered him on his attitude. “I hadn’t thought about that.”

 

“That’s okay,” Remus said. He yawned. “Padfoot?”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“You’re making me anxious just sitting there. Come up here. I don’t care if you don’t get cold or sleep.”

 

☽☽☽

 

“Holy shit you are so bad at this and I fucking love you, babe,” James said, hugging Sirius, surrounded by a bunch of ADHD print-outs and one hundred and six fidget spinners Sirius bought with James’ money on a 50% off sale. “Aw, I get my very own cognitive distortions list and look, your take on my issues are even highlighted. Fuck you, Mister Emotional Reasoning.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song James and Remus sing is Doses & Mimosas by Cherub, as per dorky tradition between them when getting a med dosage change
> 
> you're more than halfway through the story! if you've been reading in one sitting go take a break!!! drink some water, eat, sleep <3
> 
> you can follow me on tumblr here [siriuslysarcasticremus](https://siriuslysarcasticremus.tumblr.com/)


	8. in which fight me is taken too literally, sirius Has Questions, and Lily arrives (August-September)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning: explicit questions and discussions of a sexual nature

**_August_ **

 

“Today, on this glorious morning—”

 

“It’s two in the afternoon,” Remus cut in.

 

“ON THIS GLORIOUS MORNING,” James repeated. “We shall celebrate the birthing of our very own son and introduce him to the public.”

 

Remus and Sirius stared at James.

 

“We have an official name now for the punk. I’m even moving on to nicknames like Paddy.”

 

Sirius winced, swearing to never admit how being named made him all warm and gushy. “I’m not your son.”

 

“I mean,” James said, shrugging his shoulders and holding his hands out, “you kinda are.”

 

“You called him Daddy,” Remus added unhelpfully.

 

“We birthed you into the human world. I’m Sugar Daddy and Remus is—I don’t know. Your OG Papa.”

 

“Mm,” Remus protested. “I don’t want to be called Papa.”

 

“What about Pops?”

 

“Eh.”

 

“Just put on your Crocs and let’s get some brunch. I want beignets and I want them now.”

 

James and Remus did argue the whole way to brunch and discussed the technicalities over Sirius’ protests about fatherly names and who contributed to what parenting.

 

“I deserve the father of the year award,” James said after a few beignets, talking a little louder than most humans, as he was prone to do. “You thought your own child was a hallucination for _months_!”

 

The older couple next to them looked to them with varying degrees of disgust and alarm. The old woman scooted her chair farther away.

 

“Harold,” Remus whispered urgently to James, “he’s a psychotic!”

 

James startled visibly, clutching a hand at his chest and slamming his other hand against their booth’s window, “Karen! A _gay_ psychotic,” he yelped.

 

“Bisexual,” Sirius corrected, annoyed and confused.

 

“Bisexuals don’t exist. They’re just attention whores,” Remus drawled.

 

James snorted orange juice out of his nose and Remus broke soon after into helpless giggles.

 

“I hate you guys,” Sirius said.

 

“Don’t worry, Pads, you’re getting a lot better at recognizing memes and sarcasm,” Remus said, kind and encouraging. “Sorry we get away.”

 

Consolingly, James patted Sirius' hand, “You’re just a dumbass.”

 

“This is blatant homophobia,” Sirius said.

 

Remus choked on his pancake.

 

☽☽☽

 

Sirius disagreed completely.

 

If anyone was the Dad, it was _him._ He split his time between making sure James remembered to take his pills and set his alarms for work and making sure Remus did all the things he knew he was supposed to do but usually didn’t.

 

Remus hummed to this observation as he watered his cacti, because a plant that could survive in a bone-dry desert had a higher priority with hydration than Remus did. “That would make you more of a Mom friend, but that’s more of James’ title if we really get into it. I’m more of a vodka aunt.”

 

☽☽☽

 

“No, Remus is totally the gay cousin friend. No, maybe wine mom. Wait, no—I don’t know. Who even is Remus, really?”

 

“Your pan is on fire,” Sirius said blandly.

 

“Oh, motherfu—”

 

☽☽☽

 

As much as the heat of August made the three boys delirious with laughter, it also fueled fights.

 

James yelled at Remus, telling him that he was manic and needed to take his medication. Remus snapped back that James was just irritable from _his_ med changes and to not take it out on him. Then James said Remus couldn’t be so dependent on James looking out for him and fall into self-destructive pits anytime James went away—whether backpacking around Asia or staying at his parents’ house. Remus’ whole face turned red and then he cooly said James pushing himself into being the hero of everyone’s lives would never make up for all the bullying he had done as a kid.

 

It took several days before they cooled down from that fight and two days before Remus succumbed to James pestering Remus into hanging out.

 

Sirius spent the entire time in Italy whenever the Perimeter opened, relaxing and grateful that James messed up so Sirius wasn’t the one who pointed out Remus’ uptick in energy.

 

☽☽☽

 

The heat climbed higher and Sirius picked the next fight, grumpily sniping at Remus for not introducing Sirius to his other friends.

 

It wasn’t as heart-crushing as watching Remus and James dig into each other, but Remus’ final grimace and polite request for Sirius to hang out at James’ for the night hurt immensely.

 

☽☽☽

 

James and Sirius snapped at each other after both fights with Remus—lecturing and reprimanding whoever upset Remus. Their anger towards each other only went away once they wrestled until they were both too tired and hurt to emote.

 

☽☽☽

 

Finally, finally, finally the season’s fever broke and an unexpected rainstorm appeared with vigor. The agitated fog that had been coiling around all of them dissipated and they watched princess movies with hot chocolate over the weekend.

 

“I’d say sorry but we were all kinda dicks,” James said during the end credits of the girl who had really long hair. “Thus, equal blame all around.”

 

“Prongs,” Remus said, “just put your head in my lap and let me pet your hair.” Sirius sniffed, crossing his arms. “Padfoot, you can be next.”

 

James wiggled unnecessarily in getting comfy in Remus’ lap, smirking at Sirius the whole time. Sirius flashed his sharp teeth and elbowed James’ head.

 

During Sirius’ turn, Remus ended up carding his fingers through Sirius’ hair much longer than he had with James, much to Sirius’ smug delight.

 

Sirius’ worries about their trio friendship dynamic being altered forever because of the fighting were soothed away completely at a flash of lightning. James startled into sitting straight up, eyes wide behind his glasses. Thunder rumbled.

 

“I love you, Thor,” Remus said to the rain-splattered window, “you funky lesbian icon.”

 

“I love you so much, Moons,” James said with a soft fierceness and just like that—everything was right again.

 

☽☽☽

 

Everything was more than alright when Remus put on _Thor: Ragnarok_.

 

☽☽☽

 

Remus pulled Sirius closer under the umbrella, looping their elbows together. Sirius kept his upper body very, very still as they walked, trying to hide how much he wanted to melt into the touch. Letting out a satisfied hum, Remus laid his head against Sirius’ upper arm.

 

“This is nice.”

 

Sirius focused on anything other than how perfectly Remus’ smaller stature fit into Sirius’ taller human form. “I thought you hated the rain.”

 

“Sometimes it’s pretty.”

 

A large puddle—more of a small pond, really—lay in the middle of the road. Remus slowed down, and they both glanced at his sneakers. With a deep breath, Sirius said, “You promise you won’t freak?” He’d only showed this talent to Remus once, usually keeping most demon-like things to James.

 

Remus nodded. Focusing on his energy, Sirius pulled on the thread that helped him conjure his different forms. Temporary rain boots replaced Sirius’ sneakers and he pulled them off, handing them to Remus. Standing in wet socks was worth it upon seeing Remus’ look of wonder. Letting out an uncharacteristic peal of laughter, Remus handed the umbrella to Sirius, pulled his sneakers off, and shoved on the boots. He jogged a few steps ahead, kicking his feet and splashing in the water. A few people across the street looked over.

 

“I like the rain, too,” Sirius said, mostly to himself, worried about Remus’ happy moods but selfishly wanting Remus to have this happiness he so very much deserved.

 

☽☽☽

 

“Times goes by fast,” Remus commented.

 

Sirius hung out in the corner of the bedroom, despite how creepy Remus kept telling him that was. He may have cuddled Remus in bed that one night but lately Sirius felt like he’d explode if he tried that again. Sometimes even sitting next to Remus was too much and Sirius’ form flickered between transparency, having a hard time channeling his human body.

 

“I guess,” Sirius said.

 

“August is basically over,” Remus added.

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Do sleep demons keep track of time?”

 

“I don’t know,” Sirius said. Thinking how odd that answer must seem, he amended, “Not really.” Sirius only spent time with Lily as far as socializing with Creatures went and he was never one to dwell on discussing things like months and hours and seasons.

 

“Do you ever wish you were human?”

 

“No. You’re all stupid.” The complete darkness allowed Sirius to alter a few features and he used his demon eyesight to see Remus’ fond smile. He lied facing Sirius, his hands tucked under his head. Something tugged inside Sirius’ dumb human-feelings, compelling him to say, “I wish I wasn’t what I am.”

 

Remus’ whole face frowned. “That’s sad.”

 

“C’est la vie,” Sirius said.

 

“If you come sit next to my books, I’ll scratch your head.”

 

Sirius shouldn’t. He scrambled over inhumanly fast anyway, pushing his head into Remus’ outstretched hand.

 

“This feels like a kid slumber party,” Remus said, pressing his thumb into Sirius’ temple, earning an embarrassing sound from the back of Sirius’ throat.

 

It took Sirius a minute to find his voice. “What’s that mean?”

 

“School kids sleepover at each other’s houses on the weekends, sometimes. I didn’t really have friends growing up, so I guess I didn’t really experience it until college.” In a rush, Remus ended that train of thought and said, “Anyway.” He dragged his nails across Sirius’ skull. “It’s like in the dark you just say things you normally wouldn’t.”

 

Sirius hummed, having trouble focusing on anything but Remus’ cold fingers brushing through his hair.

 

☽☽☽

 

“Padfoot? Pads?”

 

Sirius’ heart dropped to his stomach as he barely caught Remus’ computer, having dropped it at the sound of Remus’ sleep call. He set it down carefully and teleported himself right into the bedroom, too panicked to walk the twenty or so footsteps there. Remus had been sleeping for four hours and Sirius hadn’t even sensed him breaching consciousness.

 

“Are you okay? Moony? What?” Sirius patted Remus down through the blanket. “What’s wrong?”

 

Lazily, Remus swatted Sirius away. “No, no. Listen,” he said seriously. After an excruciatingly long pause, Remus slurred, “ _Dad_ foot.”

 

Sirius wilted with relief. Remus smiled at him dopily, already drifting back to sleep.

 

Sitting on Remus’ bed, his hand still over Remus’ covered thigh, Sirius sat and listened to the silence. Something felt awfully important in this moment, though he knew not what.

 

**_September_ **

 

“Why does he make sounds,” Sirius demanded.

 

James jumped, slamming the freezer door closed. “What?”

 

Sirius mimicked the sounds Remus made.

 

“Don’t bring it up with him,” James said, which was his answer to most Remus-related questions. Opening and rummaging through the freezer, he continued, “He had a cat that died a few years ago. Had him since he was a kid. He was such a fat asshole.” James pulled out Mango sorbet and Sirius opened the silverware drawer, handing over a spoon. “Thanks. Anyway, he used to make kissy and clicking sounds to the cat and the habit never went away. It’s an unconscious thing, so don’t mention it.”

 

“I don’t get it.”

 

James waved his spoon around, speaking with a mouthful of melting sorbet. “When he isn’t paying attention and, like, instead of a bullshit response he’ll go _t-th t-th._ Because Lester would go _mew mew_ and Remus would make a sound back. It’s just a noise acknowledging you said something but he didn’t actually hear you.”

 

“Hm.”

 

“Wanna play Mario Kart?”

 

☽☽☽

 

“Hey, Remus,” Sirius said, popping back to his punished human’s apartment after throwing the remote-thingy at James’ window after that abomination called Rainbow Road.

 

Remus typed furiously fast on his computer, turning his head the tiniest amount and making a distracted two-kiss sound.

 

Sirius smiled softly to himself.

 

☽☽☽

 

“Look,” Sirius said.

 

“Hm? _What—_ put her down, oh my god!”

 

Sirius set the cat down but she clawed up his jean-clad legs anyway, sinking her talons into his human skin. “I got you a cat.”

 

“Isn’t that the old woman’s cat from two floors up?” Remus’ face scrunched up in confusion and Sirius took a mental picture of it. “Where did you find her?”

 

“On the staircase,” Sirius said, obviously.

 

“You can’t just take cats. Go bring her back to whatever apartment she escaped.”

 

“But—”

 

Remus quelled him with a look.

 

Sirius wrapped his hands around the cat and yanked her off his leg. She pulled her ears back and hissed in his face.

 

“ _Motherfucker,_ ” Sirius hissed back.

 

“ _Humanfucker_ ,” she hissed.

 

Sirius squawked and teleported with the cat back into her owner’s apartment. He dropped her and she landed on semi-light feet, wobbling with nausea from the trip.

 

“Ha,” Sirius said and floated through the floors back to Remus.

 

☽☽☽

 

Sirius started reading the romance novellas, finally, to help when the dark energy became too painful. It was an exceedingly great distraction. He stole a glitter pen from James—he and James got in a fight that involved eggs and bananas because apparently “gel pens” were a very touchy, possessive hoarding subject for James—and started a physical list of all his questions.

 

☽☽☽

 

Deciding that if he were to endure this suffering, Sirius became determined to drag James down with him. That, and he needed real-life human advice because Sirius didn’t trust Google and books with all this new information. He’d rather look like an idiot to James than an idiot if he—

 

“Why are you even asking me this?” James asked, his eyes half-horrified and filled with euphoria. He clutched a pillow to his chest.

 

“I’m learning human things. It’s not like I’m going to _use_ this information or anything."

 

A slow, sinister grin grew on James’ face. “Sure,” he said.

 

☽☽☽

 

Sirius figured out the answer already but he wanted to get James back for the knowing looks he kept shooting Sirius like he knew some big secret. While Remus napped, Sirius jumped past the Perimeter and to James’ workplace.

 

“What’s ‘throbbing member’ mean?”

 

James shrieked, dropping his coffee mug in the small kitchen.

 

That pained look on James’ face when a co-worker popped in to ask if James was fine? Best thing Sirius had ever witnessed (with the exception of Remus in his overalls watering cacti).

 

☽☽☽

 

“And one order of white rice,” Remus whispered.

 

“And add two orders of white rice,” Sirius relayed, smirking at Remus’ glare, to the person over the phone.

 

“Say please and thank you,” Remus reminded.

 

“Please and thanks,” Sirius said flatly.

 

“I’m not going to be able to eat all that,” Remus said when Sirius hung up.

 

Sirius shoved his bare toes in Remus’ face, wiggling them. Remus sniffed them and pretended to retch. The bottom set of Remus’ teeth were crooked, Sirius realized for the first time. Something about it charmed Sirius’ stupid human heart.

 

“Hey,” Remus said. A flush crept across Sirius’ cheeks as he startled out of his spacing out. “What do you do at the library?”

 

Being on the receiving end of all of Remus’ attention was incredible and nerve-wracking. A sudden fear of disappointing his punished human welled up in Sirius. “Um. I look things up? And I’ve been, um, reading the books you gave me.”

 

Remus smiled and Sirius internally fist-pumped. “Cool. Do you like them?” He chuckled at whatever expression Sirius made. “Yeah, sleep demons don’t do romance, right?”

 

Remus remembered that conversation about mermaids and Peter all the way back before he knew Sirius was real? The newly learned phrase _be still my beating heart_ surfaced in Sirius’ mind. “Uh,” Sirius dragged out, frantically trying to think of a response. “Um. Sleep demons...operate...differently.” Sirius cringed.

 

Remus nodded thoughtfully.

 

“Do you like those...type of things?” Sirius braved asking.

 

“What, romance novels?”

 

Sirius’ soul cried over his oblivious human making him spell it out _._ “No. Like, the. Inside parts.”

 

Remus’ eyebrows raised in surprise, which was worse than if it was in a mocking manner. “Oh, you mean romance? Or love. I guess those books are more about sex, though.”

 

This was unfortunately true. Mating was a highly prioritized activity.

 

“Yes. I mean, isn’t that the same thing?” Sirius’ face was going to burst into flames.

 

“They can be separate,” Remus answered in that _Let Me Tell You About Human Culture_ voice. “They have different spectrums, and shit.”

 

“And shit,” Sirius echoed, light-headed. Fantastic. More things to look up.

 

“I can explain it if you want,” Remus said, starting to position his body in that way he did right before he launched into some passionate ramble.

 

“No! No, no, that’s okay. That’s fine. I can just look it up.” Sirius hurriedly threw in, “Thanks.”

 

☽☽☽

 

“Spectrums,” Sirius moaned, facedown into James’ bed.

 

“Did you honestly expect those novels to be the academic textbooks of love and sex?”

 

Sirius grunted into the bed.

 

☽☽☽

 

“So. Does Remus have a willy or a hoo-hah?”

 

James spat out his coffee. To be fair, that might be because Sirius replaced the sugar with salt. Sirius watched James impassively as he coughed.

 

“You can’t just ask those things! And for the love of everything holy, do not say those words again.” James didn’t even mention his salty coffee.

 

“Why not? It’s a simple question.”

 

James fast-walked on the sidewalk and Sirius easily kept up. “I thought we talked about gender already. About Benji, remember?”

 

“I’m not talking about gender, you dumb fuck, I’m asking about private parts.”

 

“Oh my god.”

 

“Willy or hoo-hah?”

 

“ _Oh my god._ ”

 

“Calm down,” Sirius said, rolling his eyes. They were jogging at this point. “I’m learning about the mechanics.”

 

“The mechanics?” James asked hysterically. Maybe Sirius should have put less salt in the coffee. “Of sex?”

 

“Duh.”

 

“Holy shit, do you want to— _with my Moony_?”

 

“No! No, I’m just—no! Shut up!” Sirius hissed and ignored James for two days.

 

☽☽☽

 

Sirius didn’t care about these type of things. Demons didn’t even think about what parts their human bodies had—unless they went deep into the human world, like Lily, but even Lily cared little about it. Unlike Sirius, however, she was very informed on everything.

 

Sirius could look through Remus’ background like he had done with James. Not that it was necessary for this inquiry, seeing as Sirius met James naked. But Sirius didn’t like the idea of snooping on every little piece of information on Remus that a background check would instantly tell Sirius.

 

Sirius also balked at the idea of seeing Remus completely nude. He’d avoided it thus far and now it was even more scandalous to imagine doing.

 

Still, that didn’t stop him from checking out Remus’ pants, trying to see if that gave any hints. Sirius had read something about sweatpants being telling.

 

James gave Sirius a wide-eyed look and waved his hand in front of his throat, making a cutting motion, when he caught Sirius looking. When Remus got up to pee, James punched Sirius in the stomach.

 

☽☽☽

 

Sirius floated in front of the bathroom mirror, high enough so he could see his naked human form. It was the very first time he’d ever done so and might be the last.

 

He poked at his downstairs apartment.

 

“Weird,” he said out loud.

 

☽☽☽

 

“I have a willy,” Sirius announced.

 

“Neat-o,” James said, clicking the remote to some channel about a sport with a ball. “This is my life now,” he said. “Talking to supernatural creatures about dicks.”

 

☽☽☽

 

Sirius should have known better than to assume he could go through a life-altering phase without Lily being apart of it. At least James enjoyed mocking smiles without saying anything—Lily would outright call Sirius on his demon version of a crush.

 

☽☽☽

 

“PADFOOT.” Door slam. “I just met a very dazzling young woman and I demand answers.”

 

James’ cheeks were flushed, his glasses crooked, and he vibrated with energy.

 

“She’s not a woman,” Sirius said, then winced, not knowing how humans worded this. There was Benji’s way—but Lily didn’t necessarily use the same terms. Demons didn’t have terms, they just were what they were. “She’s...a Light—” _good enough_ “—Also, not young.”

 

Without missing a beat, James said, “I just met a very dazzling light and I demand answers.” Eagerly, he asked, “What’s a light?”

 

Sirius made a farting sound and disappeared. He found Lily sitting cross-legged on the roof. “ _Why_ ,” Sirius said.

 

Lily pointed a finger threateningly at him. “I can’t believe after all—this—time,” she spoke slowly and wow, she looked sincerely offended. “You’ve been hanging out with _him_? The _Mimic_. Rubber-man.”

 

“People call him Rubber-man?” Sirius perked up. “That is _fantastic_.”

 

“It’s his most recent one. Russia-preferring sleep demons have a very vulgar name for him in Russian. I have no idea why,” Lily commented. She physically shook herself, her horns momentarily shimmering on her human head, re-gaining her annoyance with Sirius. “You know I’ve always wanted to visit him!”

 

“How was I supposed to know?” Sirius said defensively, matching her loud tone. He slipped into the invisible Creature plane, going demon and crossing his arms.

 

“He’s gathered a reputation Creature-wide in twenty-four years. Twenty. Four. Do you understand how remarkable that is?” Lily angrily pulled her hair into a little bun at the top of her head.

 

“Well, now that you’ve met him, you can see how unremarkable he is.”

 

“Oh, very unremarkable,” Lily agreed easily.

 

“Hey—” Sirius started, a harsh bite creeping into his tone, but his words were drowned out by Lily’s laughter. The fight seeped out of them both.

 

“You’re so very transparent. He’s...a lot,” Lily worded carefully, “though. How do you stand it?”

 

Sirius had been truthful all those months ago—James _wasn’t_ an Innocent. While “Rubber-Man” was quite the hoot, _The Mimic_ was his most recognized name. The intention behind the first sleep demons to use the word _mimic_ was unclear. James Potter mimicked Innocents, in a sense. He also mimicked Light and Dark sleep demons. He radiated energy of all kinds, overwhelmingly positive and negative at once, that swirled about him and took up whatever room he stood in. Darks and Lights traveled to him, intrigued, but it was pretty impossible to release your load of energy. His body already attracted so much on its own. Like rubber—throw something at him and it never stuck, bouncing back to you with more force. It drove sleep demons away and largely, the community avoided him at this point. Sirius still threw out aggressive vibes when he hung out with James at night, to throw off any sleep demons interested in a visit.

 

“You get used to it,” Sirius answered honestly. “Dealing with my human—living with Remus has made me ready to take on anything. Being in human form is easiest to handle his energy. It’s kinda like the rules of Lights and Darks hanging out, you know. Don’t both be in nothingness, etcetera.”

 

“Did you just say etcetera?” Lily asked with shark teeth.

 

Sighing, Sirius said, “You’re going to be staying.”

 

“Oh, yes.”

 

☽☽☽

 

Sirius blurted the situation out to Remus, not knowing any way to go about it.

 

“You have friends?”

 

Sirius gaped, speechless. He flicked Remus’ ear finally, saying, “Asshole!”

 

With a faux-casualty Remus shrugged a shoulder and looked intently at his computer screen, saying, “I’d love to meet her. Why don’t we have James here at the same time, right?”

 

“Of course,” Sirius said, pressing his thigh reassuringly to Remus’.

 

☽☽☽

 

In true Lily fashion, she drifted off for a few days, her attention drawn solely to a new idea. Sirius found her easily and wasn’t surprised to see her hanging around the women’s homeless shelter. He made her promise to give him a heads up before she came over and threatened her to be gentle with Remus.

 

“Stopping calling him your human,” Lily said.

 

Sirius growled.

 

“I’ll tell him,” she said.

 

“You would never.”

 

“Hm. Maybe not. But I’ll be even more insufferable after seeing how badly you are mooning over a human.”

 

“I came out here to have a good time and honestly,” Sirius said, taking a pause and enjoying that Lily now had a bone-deep exasperated face identical to Remus’ one for James.

 

☽☽☽

 

James leaned over the crate housing Mrs.Nesbitt the Cactus, pressing his forehead into a drawing of a castle that was permanently taped onto Remus’ apartment wall. Compared to some of the random misshapen knick-knacks surrounding Remus’ humble abode, the drawing looked incredibly put together, maybe even beautiful. Sirius didn’t care for it much besides a little curiosity to why it was laminated. A good thing that it was protected, because James rubbed his face all over it.

 

“Please, please,” he said. The pathetic sight amazed Sirius and yet, Remus worked on editing, not intrigued in the least. Sirius elbowed him, assuming his punished human was caught up in his head. “Oh, please!” James cried.

 

“Just ignore him,” Remus said, pulling up a website on Comma Splices.

 

“Can I video it?” Sirius begged and made grabby hands for Remus’ phone.

 

Remus threw him a quick glance before grimacing back at his computer work. “You don’t know about the Magic Castle of Blessed Assery—M.C.B.A.?” When Sirius didn’t respond, Remus added, “We call it micbuh.”

 

“I thought that was a person. Some mystic or fortune teller.”

 

In the background, James continued his praying.

 

Highlighting a sentence on the digital document, Remus wrote out a comment in a little box next to it. His lips turned up in a smile as he multitasked. “Nah,” he said. “James got super into art his senior year but he had this really shitty teacher who hated him. So he stopped putting effort in and slacked off. Long story short, if he didn’t get an A for his final he was going to fail the class.”

 

“Drunk!” James called out and kissed the M.C.B.A.

 

“Yes, thank you, Prongs.” Remus read through more of the document until Sirius pressed his feet into Remus’ thigh. “Oh, yeah, so the night before it was due, James got wasted. I’m talking absolutely trashed.”

 

“And who provided that Tequila?” James mocked.

 

“Not my broke ass,” Remus said. Unless Remus’ editing took a wild twist, Sirius assumed his astonished face was due to James. “I thought it was Vodka. You drank _Tequila_?”

 

“Tequila,” James agreed forlornly.

 

“You must’ve stolen it from Marls.”

 

“Oh shit, don’t remind me.”

 

Remus puffed an amused breath out his nose and shut his computer, setting it down on the coffee table. He propped his elbow on the couch cushion and laid his head in his palm, giving Sirius all his attention. His eyelashes were mesmerizing. “We ate, like, four pizzas and James drank a ton of energy drinks.”

 

“I threw up so much. So. Much.”

 

Remus wrinkled his nose. His eyes twinkled and his gaze stayed solely on Sirius, even with James’ additions. “I looked up caffeine overdose and spazzed out—weed makes me paranoid. And James spent five hours working on this ridiculous castle, babbling about this insane plot and dragons—”

 

“Dragons are _so cool_.”

 

Sirius disagreed. Dragons thought they were too cool for anyone. Giant egos with wings.

 

“And he got an A,” Remus wrapped it up. “We lost our minds. And got even more trashed after that.”

 

James gave the castle one last kiss and came over. “It’s been our lucky ducky ever since. Seriously, touch that amazing beaut and eight times out of ten, things will work out.”

 

“It’s true. We did an excel sheet. Eight times,” Remus affirmed.

 

Sirius vaguely remembered seeing James and Remus mindlessly touch the M.C.B.A. whenever they passed by. Human superstitions were generally useless and stupid, but Sirius’ hand itched to touch it.

 

“You have to really mean it when you make a wish, though. Imagine what you want,” Remus said, carelessly leaning forward and pushing a strand of Sirius’ black locks behind his ear. His fingertips skimmed Sirius’ cheek when he pulled back with a smile, grabbing his laptop back as if the sheer tenderness of that touch was normal.

 

All Sirius’ doubts about the M.C.B.A. poofed away.

 

James’ eyes stared at some point in the air, unfocused. Gravely, he said, “I want her to find me tolerable so bad.”

 

Sirius’ doubts returned. “Yeah, if you’re talking about my friend, then this will be those two times out of ten.”

 

☽☽☽

 

“Hi, uh, Pads’ friend,” James said. “Do you like pie?”

 

James tripped over his own rug and face planted into the pie.

 

Lily froze in unnecessary horror.

 

“This is the best day of my life,” Sirius whispered.

 

“Best,” Remus wheezed out in agreement.

 

☽☽☽

 

“Please, micbuh,” Sirius said, placing his palm on the castle while Remus went into the bathroom. The day with Lily went surprisingly well—Remus and her got along a little _too_ well, if Sirius spoke honestly. Every time Remus’ anxiety rocketed up, Lily appeased him with a simple comment or question.

 

No, Sirius was not jealous. No, he was not touching M.C.B.A. because he thought he needed extra luck now that Lily arrived.

 

Soon after Remus returned from the bathroom, he fell asleep in the middle of finishing the wind-down episode before bed, slumping sideways onto Sirius in the middle of their movie. His warm, steady breathing ghosted over Sirius’ collar bones.

 

Wikipedia religion was out—the M.C.B.A. was in.

 

☽☽☽

 

Sirius avoided Lily’s pointed gaze.

 

“You haven’t told them?”

 

“He hardly tells us anything,” James bemoaned.

 

They sat in a booth at a local diner, James and Remus on one bench and Sirius and Lily on the other. Every few moments Remus nudged Sirius’ feet and Sirius lit up embarrassingly. Lily elbowed Sirius once, knowingly, but most of her focus was spent on adjusting to James’ presence. Sweat beaded her forehead.

 

“Oh, _now_ , you’re on good behavior,” Lily remarked, a little breathless. Frankly, Sirius was immensely impressed with how well she put up with the pulsing energy waves. “I’m sure the Dark Co—”

 

“Holy hell, shut up,” Sirius cut her off. “And you’re one to talk, being here with me.”

 

“Please,” Lily pressed her fists together over her chest, thumbs up in an _A_ , down, up, and down again, signing _sweetheart_ in place of his name. “They always turn a blind eye for me and it’s been long enough of us staying apart that they won’t care. Plus, I won’t...You know. Unless you want me to try and…” _Counteract,_ Sirius knew she implied. In the past, she used to put Light into the heads of the humans he put Dark into. They had only been able to do it every now and then or they’d risk punishment for Sirius—which is what had ended up happening.

 

“No,” Sirius said, a little severely. “Not—not now. We can’t risk it.”

 

Lily signed _sorry_.

 

“Um?”

 

Lily and Sirius glanced to James and Remus, who watched them varying degrees of annoyance and intrigue. A victorious _ha!_ went through Sirius—they got a taste of their own medicine. Sirius had enough of third-wheeling for a lifetime.

 

“I have so many questions,” James said.

 

Remus sipped his soda, his silence making Sirius nervous. He eyed the drink, knowing how caffeine and sugar crashes affected Remus. Catching Sirius staring, Remus raised his eyebrows tauntingly, reading Sirius’ mind.

 

“I’ll answer the one that started this whole conversation,” Lily said, referring to James asking for her name. “While I’m enjoying the hell out of _Padfoot_ , he does have a name.”

 

James and Remus’ faces slackened with mirrored shock and hurt.

 

“L— _ugh_ , we need to make you a name,” Sirius griped. “Stop playing with them.” He ran his hands through his hair, looking in James and Remus’ general direction as he explained, “I have a name, but we’re not supposed to tell humans.”

 

“No offense, dude,” James said. “But you’ve told me a lot more intimate details than a name.”

 

“What kind of details?” Lily asked. Under Sirius’ glare, she sighed and owned up to her title as his BFF. “You don’t understand. This is like a cultural difference. To you, names might seem simple, but it’s not like that. No matter how close you are to us. You don’t know the horror stories we’ve heard.”

 

“What, is it like you would give us power over you or something?” James joked.

 

“You could say that,” Lily answered darkly.

 

“I’m sorry,” Remus spoke up, catching onto the hint at Lily’s backstory.

 

“It’s whatever,” Lily said, smiling. “I go by Evans, which _Pads_ should know by now. Anyway, enough dumb shit, you have to tell me all the stupid human things Padfoot has done.”

 

☽☽☽

 

Sirius wasn’t sure how they locked into this routine of Sirius watching over Remus while he fell asleep, but he loved it. The softness of it wrapped around Sirius and he basked in the way Remus’ night pill loosened his tongue.

 

“Pads,” Remus said.

 

Sirius hummed next to the bed.

 

“Have I ever made you uncomfortable?” Sirius had never heard Remus so vulnerable. “Evans said she’s agender and have I...do you feel like you can’t tell me things?”

 

“Moony, no,” Sirius said, the nickname James used slipping off his tongue. “There’s a lot I can’t say, but. Evans has just been in the human world longer. I don’t really...care? About that stuff. The first time I was human, someone called me a man and I’ve been fine with that ever since. I’m not, I don’t know. Attached, I guess. To pronouns and whatever. But I don’t want to be called a woman or she-her.”

 

Remus reached out blindly and touched Sirius face, laughing a little to himself.

 

“Moony,” Sirius mumbled against Remus’ hand, “what the fuck?”

 

“I could tell you were making a weird expression. I wanted to check.” Remus pushed the corner of Sirius’ lip up before releasing. “Are you going to start calling me Moony?”

 

“Maybe.”

 

“You don’t have to be so defensive all the time, Pads. I like you calling me Moony.”

 

Sirius changed the subject before his cheeks heated up more. “Where did Moony come from?”

 

“I honestly have no clue but I got a moon tattooed on my ass the night the name was born.”

 

“WHAT?”

 

☽☽☽

 

“He also has a belly button piercing,” James said. “Honestly, I tell the ass tattoo and his belly button to, like, every new person we meet. How do you not know this?”

 

“His—belly—button—is— _pierced._ ”

 

“On the same night, actually. Terrible decision. Doing both at the same night—not the things themselves. I got a tattoo, too. An antler on each cheek.”

 

“Yes, I’ve seen it.” Sirius closed his eyes. “Do not remind me.”

 

“If you think you’ve seen us having a breakdown you are _not_ prepared for the force of manic Moony and hyper Prongs. It’s beauty. It’s grace,” James lightly sang. “The-next-morning-our-impulsive-decisions will kick us in the face.”

 

Dumbly, Sirius repeated, “Belly button.”

 

Curiously, James asked, “Are piercings what get you hot under the collar? Or is it only Moony-related things?”

 

Sirius disappeared, grabbed the orange in the stupid fruit basket across the apartment, reappeared and threw it at James’ face.

 

☽☽☽

 

When Sirius finished an appropriate cold shoulder amount of time, he returned to James’ apartment only to find Lily there, saying, “Oh, I’m _very_ sexual.”

 

Sirius did a perfect imitation of James’ shrieks.

 

☽☽☽

 

Lily brought Sirius to a peaceful grassy hill—just like the movie Remus put on last night where the actors broke out into singing—for his freakout.

 

“Are you going to have _sex_ with James?” Sirius paced in a circle. “I mean, I know you have sex. Probably. I didn’t think about it but you’re human a lot—and humans—sex, obviously, but _James_? He has a willy!”

 

Lily sat on the ground, her eyes calmly tracking Sirius. “I’m not having sex with James, calm down, Ser. I get too irritated being around his weird mimic energy all the time to even try getting that intimate. You caught us at the wrong time—I was explaining that sleep demons do have sex because you made a comment implying we don’t do romance.”

 

“Romance and sex are different,” Sirius recited.

 

“Yes, I know,” Lily said calmly. “You can’t just go around telling people that James has a penis, Ser. That’s not cool.”

 

Sirius flopped down, hovering an inch above the grass. He groaned loudly. “I _know_. I don’t get why it’s so private or why humans care. I’m just saying that if you have sex he might want to put that _inside_ something and I read how it can be very painful. I’m just looking out for you.”

 

Lily said nothing for several minutes. “You don’t make anything easy, do you?”

 

“Shut up.”

 

“There’s a lot of ways sex can happen—not that I want to with James! Seriously, chill out.” Lily grabbed a handful of grass and tossed it in Sirius’ face. “Just let me give you some fucking resources because if you’re careful and considerate it shouldn’t be horrifically painful like you’re thinking. Also, there’s toys and shit—fingers, Ser—so anyone can put something _inside_ no matter their junk, you big doofus. Stop thinking about a person’s junk.”

 

“But if I don’t know their junk then how am I supposed to know what to do?” Sirius asked, ripping out his own handful of grass for the simple satisfaction of destruction.

 

Lily took another long pause. “Do you want to do that sort of stuff?”

 

“Good job at being vague as shit,” Sirius snapped

 

Lily laughed, lifting herself up into the air as well and rolling onto her stomach so she could face Sirius, using her laser gaze to study him. “You’re the one awkward with terminology, dork. I’m trying not hurt your delicate sensibilities.” Gently, she said, “You never have to do anything like that if you don’t want to.”

 

Sirius harrumphed. “Why do _you_ want to do that stuff,” he asked more whiney and jealous than he had meant to sound. “Don’t look at me with pity!”

 

“You’re so—” Lily groaned. “No wonder you’ve never talked like this with me. Fuck. Okay, I’ll give you a list of things to look up, okay?”

 

Sirius brightened considerably. “We can stop talking?”

 

“Fucking hell,” Lily muttered. She sat up and clapped her hands, indicating for Sirius to sit up, too. “Alright! So. I want you to look up aromance and asexuality.”

 

“Okay,” Sirius said dubiously.

 

Lily rolled her eyes into the back of her head and out. “Just think about how sleep demons were created to have no other wants but to dish out energy to humans. _But_ , the more we go in our human bodies, the more human we become. You sweat and breathe and blush even though you don’t need to regulate your temperature or have real lungs or blood. Sometimes, we—sleep demons—can start to want things. Maybe we don’t _need_ them like humans do, but when I go human I have to eat and drink or I get really light-headed.”

 

“You said we didn’t have to talk—”

 

“Fuck off. Do you want my help or not?” Sirius glared. “However we adapt as a human, even if we never change to want certain human things like sex and romance, that’s fine. I like sex but that doesn’t mean you have to. I’m not that interested in romance but I’m not opposed to trying.”

 

“TMI.” Sirius frowned. “My head hurts.”

 

“Look up aro-ace, okay?” Lily took Sirius’ hand and squeezed. “Everything will be fine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> important note: James isn't The Mimic because he has ADHD, it's just who he is (I might do a one-shot someday about his side plot)
> 
> you can follow me on tumblr here [siriuslysarcasticremus](https://siriuslysarcasticremus.tumblr.com/)


	9. bonding, dying, yearning (October)

**_October_ **

 

Lily said goodbye, saying she’d return in a week, acting like she had business to attend to but Sirius knew it was because she struggled with adapting to James. She refused to admit to any failure, however, and he expected she’d be back soon and hellbent on being around James. Not that James would mind, since he walked around with ridiculously effective puppy eyes since she left.

 

“You’re not cute,” Sirius said.

 

“I’m totes cute,” James said, widening his eyes more. They were such a warm brown and loving and—

 

“Stop it.”

 

“Tell me more about her,” James pleaded.

 

“No.”

 

“I’ll give you pointers on wooing Remus,” James said.

 

Sirius narrowed his eyes. “I don’t need help. Not that I am wooing.”

 

☽☽☽

 

Remus took to working at his desk recently instead of lounging on the couch or bed. He looked very grown-up and productive and Sirius was extremely proud of his human.

 

Today, Sirius claimed all of his beloved green couch, lying his whole body across it. He listened to the clacking of Remus typing and the hours passed, the light changing across the ceiling.

 

“Can sleep demons get depressed?” Remus asked. Sirius had heard Remus turning in his desk chair, throwing Sirius increasingly longer looks as night approached.

 

“Why?” Sirius asked, gaze unfocused on the air.

 

“You’re not doing anything,” Remus said, not patronizing, just matter-of-fact. “You’ve had, like, zero spoons all the time this week.”

 

Sirius grumbled. He remembered reading the spoon theory on Wikipedia but he was a _demon_. Demons didn’t need spoons.

 

Sirius anticipated more interrogating questioning. Remus looked thoughtful. “Do you want to go to the beach?”

 

“What?” Sirius asked, cinching his eyebrows together, lifting out of his numbness slightly.

 

Remus looked at him expectantly. “We could take a break and go to the beach.”

 

“It’s night.”

 

“Thanks, Captain Obvious. I’m talking about a vacation. Tomorrow’s Thursday. What if we drive down to the coast on Friday and come back Monday? We can stay at some shitty hotel and lie on the sand instead of the couch.”

 

Irritation curled possessively around Sirius’ mind—Remus was right, he had been more off than usual this week. This beach idea was so spur of the moment and Sirius itched to ask how in the hell would water make him feel better. Twisting to face Remus better, Sirius opened his mouth, intent on asking him so.

 

Remus’ eyes were just as effective as James’, however—such a different brown, more auburn, hazel, and basically begging Sirius to come closer so he could see the green in them. It was even worse than James’ puppy dog face because Remus’ were naively wide and bright with no idea as to how cute he was being.

 

Sirius looked at the reading glasses pushed into Remus’ floppy hair, the little indent on Remus’ nose from them, his sweater that had the little patch sewn over a large hole on the left arm, his little superhero shorts, and bare legs with dusty blond hair.

 

“Do I have to wear a bathing suit?” Sirius asked.

 

The skin around Remus’ eyes crinkled. “You never have to do anything you don’t want, Pads.”

 

☽☽☽

 

James threw a whole dramatic weepy fit about being excluded from their B.B.T. (bromantic beach trip). His work couldn’t afford him missing the weekend due to some fancy mental illness conference with workers from other youth mental health centers.

 

With a hand over his chest, James declared, “The only, _only_ way I could ever forgive you and not renounce you as my best friends, would be if you let me handle the finances.” He sniffed, his nose upturned.

 

“No,” Remus said firmly.

 

“I was already planning on it,” Sirius said.

 

James dropped his tense body posture and grinned. “Great!” Later, he whispered to Sirius, “Not wooing Moony, my ass.”

 

Sirius, kicking the back of James’ knee, thanked the universe for keeping James from coming on their trip.

 

☽☽☽

 

Sirius experienced the same nothingness state of mind on the car trip exactly like the first time Remus drove Sirius, the few hours of driving mostly quiet and calm. Being in the car felt like being in a piece of Remus’ soul. An intimate faux pocket universe. Stealing glances at Remus, Sirius knew he failed at the art of subtlety, but he couldn’t stop looking. Remus’ eyes were puffy from sleep and the back of his hair stood straight up—he looked gentle. Felt gentle. Made Sirius feel gentle.

 

That was the theme of their beach getaway. Gentleness. Remus’ little yawns, the light blue beach towels, the passionate lecture Remus gave on the difference of bath versus beach towels, the mild temperature.

 

Remus bought a pair of what he called John Lennon Sunglasses in town which were laughably silly, perfectly circular, and looked too small for his face. The combination of those, Remus’ little lime green swim trunks, and his very bare skin nearly wiped away every bad thing Sirius had ever felt.

 

It was an odd weekend to visit the ocean, and the temperature not enticingly hot enough, leaving plenty of stretches of the beach hardly populated. Sirius and Remus set their towels next to each other and just sort of...existed. There weren’t any fantastic stories to tell—they kicked sand at each other and listened to the muffled roar of the ocean when lying flat down and meandered through town to buy milkshakes and found broken seashells along the shore and chased the tide as it pulled in so they could run from it as it pushed out to nip at their heels. They kicked up wet sand at each other. After Sirius found Peter and promised him a favor in exchange for leaving Remus alone, they ventured into the ocean, jumping over waves and daring the other to dunk fully under the water.

 

Remus squealed whenever seaweed touched him and they discovered the joys of Sirius giving Remus piggyback rides, which Remus insisted on for all teleportation. Sirius bottled up the feeling of cold water lapping at his thighs and the warmth of Remus pressed to his back, limbs wrapped around Sirius, his laughter in Sirius’ ear as he shoved his bucket hat onto Sirius’ head after Sirius had called it ugly.

 

☽☽☽

 

The car ride home was both sweet and solemn.

 

☽☽☽

 

Stepping back into the apartment was like descending into doom. Sirius _loved_ Remus’ apartment, and yet it felt foreboding and depressing. He had forgotten the reason why they took the trip in the first place. All at once, it hit Sirius how tired he was and how thinly he held back the dark energy devastating his being.

 

☽☽☽

 

Sirius wouldn’t word Remus as frantic with energy but he did look rejuvenated. His sleep schedule slipped away, but he wasn’t sad or hyped up. The only thing betraying his calmness was the new habit of pulling the blinds closed out of fear that people could be looking into the apartment. Sirius let it be, too tired to comfort Remus that no one watched them.

 

☽☽☽

 

Sirius didn’t let onto it but it had been about a year anniversary since Remus had first stopped taking his meds.

 

Looking at the large picture of the past year, Sirius thrived in a new-found happiness—so much more alive than he had ever been. But Remus’ sleep schedule on Sirius’ essence was a harsh toll. Sirius was no stranger to the pain of dark energy—in his youngling days he even willingly held onto the negative energy for nights, testing his boundaries, trying to minimize the number of times he plagued humans.

 

Only two days after the beach, unbelievable pain consumed Sirius beyond anything he had ever experienced. He was well acquainted with going five days without any energy release. This time, though, on this gloomy morning, Sirius felt seconds away from fainting unless he stayed in his nothingness form. The pain made him delirious with anger and his inability to handle the pain, something he was a goddamn _professional_ at, had fury raging inside him.

 

“Sleep,” Sirius said, weakly pulling himself into human form.

 

Remus typed rapidly on his computer like he had all night, making a grumbling _no_ sound.

 

“You’re manic,” Sirius said. “I’ll tell James.”

 

“Pads, stop it,” Remus snapped.

 

The suddenness of Remus’ harsh tone broke Sirius. Mindlessly, Sirius shoved the computer off Remus’ lap and yelled, “NO!”

 

Remus stared at him, mouth hanging open.

 

“You’re trying to kill me,” Sirius said, closing his eyes and pulling at his hair. His eyes felt horrifyingly wet but he didn’t care because it hurt _so bad._ He was aware of every Dark sleep demon within the city, every Dark that was aware of his ticking time bomb to death. He swore he smelled smoke or burning, he wondered if his human skin could set on fire from the negative energy, if it could match his insides. His insides that burned and burned and _hurt—it hurt so badly._ “You’re trying to kill me,” Sirius repeated over and over, blabbering nonsensically and falling to the floor.

 

Remus said something in a shaking voice but Sirius couldn’t make out the words. With blurry vision, Sirius sloppily shoved Remus away from touching him. His skin felt raw and each second peeled away another layer. Time was tearing into him and fear was strangling what he had left of his consciousness—never had the end felt so close.

 

Sirius imagined Lily arriving, imagined her cool palms holding his face and asking him how could he have not told Remus.

 

“He wants me to die,” Sirius slurred.

 

“No, no, he doesn’t,” Lily’s voice replied, so real that Sirius thought she might be there. “You’re not gonna die, love. I promise. We’ll find someone sleeping, okay?”

 

“Can’t,” Sirius said. “Council blocked everyone else.”

 

Sirius had never heard Lily swear so much in one sentence.

 

“Is he going to die?” Remus’ shrill voice broke through Sirius’ haze. That was real, Sirius knew. He could never have imagined Remus’ voice sounding like that.

 

“I’m sorry about this,” Lily said and there was a loud _smack_ followed by a heavy _thump_. Sirius couldn’t see anything in his pain. “Let go, Ser,” Lily said. “Let it all out. All of it.”

 

“He can’t—”

 

“He _can_ ,” Lily said. “And he will. You, however, can’t. Let go, Sirius. I’ll be right here. I’ll be here.”

 

Sirius opened the gates and lost himself in a daze as everything rushed out of him.

 

☽☽☽

 

“Pads, I swear to literally every God anyone has ever worshipped or thought of or existed,” James threw his hands in the air, “you need to go back to Remus. You’re stinking this apartment up like a wet dog. I feel like I’m breathing in some concoction of moody teenager and pissy grandpa.”

 

“ _Fine_ ,” Sirius spat, turning himself invisible.

 

“I know you’re still here, asshole!”

 

Sirius mocked James in a squeaky voice, still invisible but making sure his voice was within the human plane.

 

“It’s been two goddamn weeks. Stop licking your wounds and go talk with him,” James yelled. Anytime Sirius went invisible, James shouted as if that was the only way Sirius would be able to hear him from the Creature plane. It was still funny enough that Sirius didn’t correct him.

 

“I’m not licking my wounds,” Sirius said, reappearing and baring his sharp teeth at James. “I’m angry.”

 

Unfazed, James crossed his arms. “You’re a little embarrassed baby who is too much of a coward to own up to a breakdown.”

 

“I almost _died_!”

 

“So you’ve said! You’ve had two weeks to explain it and you haven’t AND you never told us about it beforehand,” James said. He gesticulated with his hands as he talked, pacing and ending up in the kitchen, the counter separating them. “Shit, Pads, I thought we were best friends.” James turned his back to Sirius, leaning against the counter and facing away. Sirius could see him deflate, his shoulders drooping low.

 

Sirius stood stiffly, not speaking. He didn’t understand what being friends— _best?—_ had anything to do with this.

 

“Right,” James said to the fridge, void of emotion. “Got it.”

 

☽☽☽

 

The next night, James waited on the guest room bed that Sirius had made into his new home. He flipped through the book Sirius had stolen from the library—a children’s book about a white rabbit that jumped into different colored tubs of paint and deciding that it liked itself as a combination of ever color—a handsome brown.

 

“Lily texted me you just did your demon thing to Remus.” James set the book down. “I know you’re here.”

 

Sirius scowled, planning on cursing Lily out later. Except she’d pinch his ear and give him a lecture if he stayed longer than a minute around her. While Sirius stayed in James’ apartment, Lily had been looking over Remus. It added to Sirius’ general bitterness—he could hear the two of them laughing together even from several floors above. Of course they’d get along swimmingly—Lily had none of the baggage of a Dark. She matched Remus’ bright Innocent soul with her own bright, giving nature.

 

“Padfoot,” James said, resigned.

 

“What?” Sirius said flatly, dropping into his human body and leaning against the headboard. He stared straight ahead, refusing to meet James’ eyes. He grumbled at James’ loud sigh.

 

“Scoot over,” James said, shoving Sirius to the side before he had a chance to respond. Settling in, lying on his side to face Sirius, James gave Sirius a challenging look. “If we’re going to have a talk then it’s going to be slumber party time.”

 

Sirius’ clenched his teeth, glancing away, remembering Remus speaking softly in the dark and explaining human sleepovers.

 

“I’ve known Remus since I was five,” James said out of nowhere.

 

Without thinking, Sirius broke his uncaring facade by saying, “Remus said he never had friends growing up.”

 

James winced. He grabbed one of the many pillows behind him and hugged it to his chest, “We weren’t friends. I think we had the same teacher in second grade but he always kept to himself. I don’t think he ever came to my birthday parties and everyone in school was always invited to them. He was just odd, you know?”

 

Something hot, an emotion strong enough to burst the surface of Sirius’ self-pity, flared up. A little Remus came to Sirius’ mind, skinny and all sharp angles and holding tightly onto a little backpack, watching the other kids play at the background.

 

“We were the only two kids from our school to go to the same private middle school,” James went on. “I didn’t even know his name until then. But we still weren’t friends. I was a dick, basically. Loud and impatient, had a quick temper and—basically you, actually,” James said. Sirius’ chest loosened at the playful jab. “But we were in the same advanced classes and Remus was so hilarious. Teachers used to pair us up, thinking Remus would somehow control me or inspire me to be the perfect student like him. The little shit just got me in more trouble, snarking under his breath and looking innocent while I ‘disrupted’ the class by laughing.” Sirius snickered and James relaxed at the sound, sinking into the blankets.

 

“But then he skipped seventh and eighth grade. I didn’t see him again until I was a freshmen, two years later. I didn’t get my shit together until the end of my sophomore year and by then he graduated and was off to college.” James’ light-heartedness faded and Sirius grabbed a pillow to hold to his chest as well. “Imagine my surprise when four years later he popped up at my college, twitchy and looking haunted, when he should’ve graduated already at his big prestigious college.”

 

Sirius filed all the information to dwell on later, asking, “What happened?”

 

“Ask him yourself.”

 

Sirius smushed his pillow closer to himself, not budging from his decision to only see Remus for three seconds a day once Remus fell asleep.

 

James groaned. He shoved the pillow he’d been hugging behind his head and turned on his back, looking at the ceiling. They lied in tense silence for several minutes. “We both have shitty backstories, Pads,” James said. “You, too, if you’d tell us yours. But once my parents finally found a psychiatrist who didn’t blame my behavior on them adopting a non-white kid, getting treatment was really easy for me. I’m still on the same pill they first put me on when I was fifteen and I’ve only tried two others since then, one of which I still take. That’s, like, incredible in terms of a pill working and not having side effects.”

 

Nothing clicked in Sirius’ brain. He asked, “How many has Remus taken?”

 

James laughed. “Fuck if I know.”

 

Sirius frowned. He collected all worry for his punished human and stored it for later, focusing on the other piece of information that nagged at him. “People didn’t believe you’re sick?”

 

“Racism in diagnosing mentally ill people. Shocker,” James deadpanned. “It’s why I want to open up my open mental health youth center, you know? A lot of people of color get blamed for their symptoms being just who they are and that it was parenting problems. My parents being white helped but the statistics of non-white kids being diagnosed with ADHD compared to white kids is fucked up.”

 

“That’s not fair,” Sirius said fiercely, pushing himself up onto his elbows.

 

James reached out and squeezed Sirius’ wrist. “I’ve missed you.”

 

☽☽☽

 

Sirius anxiously bid his time until he knew he’d have to talk to Remus. He couldn’t stop thinking of everything James said, but after two full weeks of no contact...Sirius was vibrating with anxiety. The push that got Sirius off his ass was not being able to live with James another second after he shaved his legs.

 

_“I shaved my legs last night. Feel them.”_

 

_“Why?” Sirius had asked. Obligingly, he felt James’ leg—silky smooth_

 

_“I don’t know. I bought a razor and some sweet-smelling cream and bam! Look at them. So soft. It took ages, though.”_

 

It had been three days since James shaved and he insisted on prancing around in shorts to show off his baby-oiled hairless legs with pride while complaining endlessly about how freezing he was.

 

“It’s fucking freezing in here,” James said for the fifth time in two minutes. Sirius nearly crushed the remote—having to rewind _again_ to watch his favorite part of _How to Train Your Dragon._

 

“Put on some goddamn pants,” Sirius said.

 

“And hide away these babies?” James stuck a leg in the air. “I shaved again. Feel them. _Feel. Them._ ”

 

“Oh for fuck’s sake!” Sirius shouted, having once again missed the short second where Toothless lets Hiccup place a hand on his head for the first time.

 

☽☽☽

 

“Padfoot…?” Remus stood in his puffy winter jacket, the door shutting softly on its own behind him. A healthy flush covered his face from his walk—Sirius ached so much, unable to tell Remus how proud he was. He’d heard from Lily that Remus had been getting out of the apartment more.

 

“I…” Sirius’ knees hurt from his awkward crouch on the ground. “I painted you a cactus,” he finished lamely, pointing his paintbrush at Remus’ bedroom door and accidentally splattering red paint specks.

 

“Why?”

 

“I don’t know,” Sirius said, a bit snappish.

 

Bemused, Remus shrugged off his coat and hung it up, walking slowly over to Sirius and sinking down onto the ground. Sirius ungracefully fell from his crouched position to sitting criss-crossed beside Remus. Sirius’ ears whooshed like the ocean, his insides squirming.

 

“Hi,” Remus said. He’d cut his hair—just enough to notice. Sirius forgot how fluffy it always looked, especially windswept like it was now.

 

“I’m sorry,” Sirius blurted.

 

Carefully, Remus took the paintbrush out of Sirius’ hand and set it on the ground. “No, Pads, I’m sorry,” Remus said. He stared at the paintbrush for a few moments and then looked at Sirius from under his eyelashes. “I’m so sorry.”

 

“You’re not supposed to be sorry,” Sirius said, a little louder than he meant to. He dragged his nails across his arms. “This is why I didn’t come back—you’re too good, an Innocent, and you shouldn’t be sorry, you didn’t even _know_ , and you can’t help it, and it’s my fault—”

 

“Breathe.”

 

“I can’t breathe, I’m a sleep demon. I’m not a human!”

 

“I know,” Remus said. “I know that.”

 

“I wanted to be human,” Sirius blurted and Remus took Sirius’ hand away, keeping him from scratching at his arm. “I wanted to be human. I wanted to be human.”

 

“I know,” Remus said quietly.

 

☽☽☽

 

“I thought the cactus could help protect you,” Sirius said, ineloquently, once he calmed down.

 

Scrubbing at his face, Remus muffled, “Thank you,” his voice thick with some emotion. He coughed and dropped his hands, fiddling with them as he confessed, “I’m taking better sleep medication. I’m slowly going back on all my meds. Agreeing with my psychiatrist and everything.” He gave Sirius a strained smiled. “I sleep a full ten hours now.”

 

Horror filled Sirius’ gut. “Remus, no—what, you shouldn’t—you hate—”

 

Remus held up a hand. “It’s fine. I should’ve done it a long time ago. Shouldn’t have stopped taking them. If you promise to not say you’re sorry,” Sirius made a strangled sound, “I won’t keep saying it either.”

 

Unhappily, Sirius agreed. Deciding to be brave, Sirius added, “If you tell me about...you. I’ll tell you about me.”

 

Remus gazed at Sirius searchingly, maybe from the way Sirius poorly phrased everything. He nodded wordlessly and scooted to lean against the wall. Tilting his head back, he watched Sirius expectantly. “I won’t judge,” he said.

 

“I know,” Sirius said. And he did. “I’m not...like Evans,” he started, and wasn’t that the beginning of it all? “I’m something to be ashamed of. I’m evil. Or bad. Like a bogeyman.” Sirius moved to lean against the wall, too, staring straight ahead and grateful for Remus not butting in any protests. “My kind, the Dark sleep demons, they don’t care. But it bothered me. So much. And I stopped doing it. I pushed how long I could go without giving nightmares, and built my strength to go longer. Lights and Darks can go about a week of keeping our energy in before we die.”

 

Remus made a wounded sound.

 

“The first three days are hard. Evans says it’s similar to starving a person. The fifth day is when it’s really unbearable. And then by the seventh, our bodies just...explode. Fall apart. I’m made of darkness,” was birthed from it, “and if I fill up with too much, then the darkness consumes me until I split apart so other Dark sleep demons can absorb whatever energy I had been.

 

“I used to only be able to go three days before it was too much, but I did the best I could once I started rebelling. I targeted terrible people—bullies, abusers, anyone who I thought deserved bad dreams. I’m supposed to be indifferent, though, is the thing…and once my kind figured out what I was doing, they punished me. They had a mandated list of humans, no longer giving me the option to choose who I released my dark energy on. That’s how I met Lily—she heard about my reputation and she conspired with me, putting lightness into the heads of those I gave nightmares to cheat the system, counteract the effects. When my kind figured that out, they tightened their leash on me and I was stuck to a list of a specific set of humans—the pure ones. We call them Innocents.

 

“And, um. That was rough. There were a lot of kids.” It wasn’t something Sirius could ever forgive himself for—all those thousands of Innocents. Remus could never understand any explanation, not how it felt _different_ handling Innocents, how they had seeable auras, how they were affected so much more. “I was dutiful, I guess, throughout that time period because I wanted to be done with it as soon as I could. But once that punishment was paid for, they still kept me on a list of random humans. I guess I’ll never get back a choice or be trusted to choose without supervision. And then I messed up _one_ time—” Sirius would never apologize for the teddy bear dreams “—and that was my third time being in trouble. So. They bring out the big guns, of course.”

 

“Me?” Remus asked, confused.

 

“Yeah. It’s the worst kind of torture.” Waves of grief rolled through Sirius, bottled up for decades. “Being stuck with the same person every night, watching the consequences, the weight of their suffering by your hands into the next day.” The words dried up in his throat, how every time he looked at Remus, Remus was bright and glowing and warm and beautiful and Sirius’ purpose was to break that down.

 

The look on Remus’ face was pure heartbreak—a mirror image of how it looked the day he found out Sirius had a real name.

 

“I tried to tell you,” Sirius half-lied. “You just didn’t know the extent. I should’ve told you. I’m sorry. I just have never been a human, really, or had friends, and I knew it was too good and I couldn’t ruin it. And now you’re taking medication because of me which you hate and I feel so much better now that you’re sleeping but it’s so selfish because you look like shit, no offense.”

 

Remus smiled a small smile, fond even. “None taken. And shut up, it’s my turn now. Thank you for telling me all of that. It’s a lot,” Remus let out a laughing breath, “and thank you.”

 

Sirius averted his eyes, half-shrugging, his mind having disconnected the second he began speaking. Distantly, a part of him was setting himself on fire.

 

Remus cleared his throat a few times. “You know…you know how you got mad at me that month when we were all arguing? About how I don’t introduce you to my other friends?” Sirius nodded, sheepish. “Well, I don’t have other friends. Those are hallucinations.” Remus laughed at Sirius’ expression. “You’re not the only one. Well, I know now you aren’t one, but you get what I mean. I don’t have Bluetooth or any wireless phone calls with friends. It’s just me talking back to hallucinations or things I see in the corner of my eye.” Bit by bit, Remus sobered up, far more composed than Sirius had been.

 

“You probably read about it when you researched the hell out of mental illnesses, but talking back or acknowledging a hallucination can help. It’s like a false sense of control. I don’t know. I guess it makes it easy to deny the scariness. It’s why I’ve always acted like you were real, even when I thought you weren’t. Most aren’t so realistic, though, especially visually. I hear more than I see.

 

“When I was a kid, I wasn’t that calm about it. I didn’t talk back—I hid under my bed. It was just whispering voices that sounded right around the corner but I could never find them. The thought of being ‘loony’ scared the shit out of me and I ignored it. I threw myself into schoolwork and my parents really pushed me to do well in school. My dad, especially. I’m the first in his line of family to have gone to college. I skipped two grades ahead, even. I’m not naturally a genius, not like James or Einstein, I just worked really hard. I spent all my time studying and studying and studying. When I was about fourteen my mom got really worried about me and brought me to a professional and I was diagnosed with depression.

 

“I didn’t tell anyone about the voices I distantly heard or that sometimes I saw moving shadows when I stayed up too late working on homework. My dad didn’t want to believe it. I think he just didn’t want to see how zombie-like I was becoming from school pressure. And I would have small bursts where it seemed like I was cured—like how I’ve been lately, overly productive and functional without sleep and easily giddy. My dad said I was fine and sent me off to college at sixteen.

 

“I was a complete mess. I couldn’t keep up with academics and no one wanted to be friends with the little kid unless they found it funny to get me drunk, which I carelessly let happen. I really started hearing voices, clearly, and a counselor suggested I was bipolar but I didn’t want to deal with it. My sophomore year, I hit my first big manic episode, not just hypomania, and I was under crazy delusions that I had to get straight As because the government was counting on me to become this big figure and that people were watching my every move. I was twitchy and I didn’t sleep because I had to study every second and I forgot to eat and I cracked during a final.

 

“I don’t remember any of it, really. The next thing I remember was being in a hospital with deep scratches down my arms and being talked to about breaks from reality. Fuck, I was kept there for so long because I went speechless without realizing, answering questions and having conversations in my head but never saying the words out loud.

 

“When I was released, Columbia kicked me out. I started taking medication after medication with horrible side effects. Weight gain, some temporary blindness, lithium poisoning, muscle spasms, memory loss, sleeping fourteen hours and napping more during the day, no concentration, suicidal thoughts, physical and emotional numbness, headaches, heart palpitations, fevers—you name a side effect, I probably had it. Some of them made me so dehydrated that I’d wake up every hour at night to drink a full glass of water. My mom started putting a giant pitcher of water by my bed.

 

“I took a year off school. And then my mom died and I took another year off.

 

“My dad and I had a hard time being around each other after that. I think he has a lot of guilt for dismissing my depression as nothing because I had hypomania episodes. So, I transferred to a university closer to home and me and James ran into each other. He found me crying in a bathroom, drunk as shit and freaking out about how alcohol would interact with my medication. The rest was history and we’ve always kept track of each other’s disorders since.

 

“James has helped me through a lot of medication trial and errors and episodes. I guess when he left for his trip to Asia last year, I just...couldn’t see the point in suffering through the side effects of my medication without him to remind me how they helped. My doses have to be constantly shifted and evaluated and I just didn’t have the energy for it. My body just...really doesn’t do well with medication. I started having creepy visual hallucinations in my bedroom and I stopped my sleeping pills and then I met you.

 

“But. Um. Now I’m back on a combination of my old pills and a new one as well, which is good because I need to be medicated, even if it sucks.”

 

“That’s a lot,” Sirius repeated Remus’ phrase.

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Are we okay?”

 

Remus looked at Sirius tiredly. He patted Sirius’ hand. “Thank you for the cactus.”

 

☽☽☽

 

When Remus admitted to not tolerating medications well, he wasn’t exaggerating. Sirius had a hard time seeing how his pills were supposed to help him when he spent most of his time in bed, tired and trying to adjust to the symptoms they caused.

 

Determined to help, Sirius came up with a brilliant idea. They’d go to the museum this weekend, see art, get Remus out of the house and moving.

 

“So. Doesn’t that sound good? Remus?”

 

“Huh? Oh, yeah. I’d love to. Sure.”

 

“You’re not even paying attention,” Sirius accused.

 

“No, no, I am.”

 

“You’re not! What did I say?”

 

“Um. Something about art? And a flyer at the library.”

 

“If you don’t want me to be here, just say so.”

 

“No, no, Pads, that’s not it.” Remus sat up and rubbed his eyes. “I’m sorry. Start again. Please.”

 

“It doesn’t matter.”

 

“Okay,” Remus said tiredly. “I think I might close my eyes a bit.”

 

Sleep! That was how much he’d prefer being alone over Sirius!

 

“Fine,” Sirius spat and disappeared to James’ apartment.

 

James didn’t tolerate Sirius’ petulant sensitively for even a second.

 

“His meds make him spacey, for fuck’s sake, Sirius. Also his disorders. And just normal people who are tired. But he’s trying a new medication. If he’s fucking sleeping, that says something. Just calm down, asshole,” he said without heat. He nudged Sirius. “Think.”

 

Sirius growled. He hadn’t expelled the dark energy when he left and he was too irritated to see himself as anything but right in this situation.

 

He stayed at James for as long as he could before he decided to return and dump the dark energy. Lily made him promise to release energy as soon as he even felt a prickle of pain. Luckily, Remus slept on, in the same upright position on the couch.

 

“I’m leaving you to sleep there,” Sirius said in the plane between Creatures and humans, his voice not making a real sound in the apartment.

 

“I am,” Sirius insisted hotly. Remus snuffled and shifted his head in deep slumber. After giving a great big _harrumph_ , Sirius angrily paced the apartment, his eye eventually catching on the bottles in the kitchen. Impulsively, Sirius snatched one and read the label. _Side effects may include increased appetite, changes in sleep, and trouble concentrating._

 

Oh.

 

Sirius used his invisible form to help float Remus off the couch and into bed, tucked under blankets. With a sigh, he released all the energy and quickly left for the library to research medication, ashamed at how he thought fresh air would cure everything.

 

☽☽☽

 

“Isn’t this great.” Sirius chewed on his tongue, anxious ever since Remus insisted on taking up on the museum offer.

 

“Yeah. I love it Sirius.” Remus faked an earnest tone. The harsh lighting of the exhibit highlighted the dark circles under his eyes.

 

Sirius read thousands of websites on what love was. How was he supposed to know what love felt like if he never experienced it before? Was he capable of loving? What was the line between liking and loving? Why would a demon ever experience a wild human concept?

 

As Remus forced on a happy smile, feigning interest in the art and thanking Sirius for coming up with this idea—it hit Sirius like a sledgehammer.

 

This was what love was.

 

Remus loved Sirius. Maybe not romantically, but he loved Sirius. At this museum Remus had absolutely no interest in being in, he cared more about Sirius’ feelings than his own. Sirius could tell Remus would stay here all day if Sirius had wanted to do so.

 

Remus loved him, in spite of everything. He loved him like James loved Sirius. Like Lily and Sirius loved each other.

 

“Hey,” Sirius said, not entirely present. “What if we just leave and go to the movies?”

 

Remus toned down his obvious relief and casually asked, “Are you sure?”

 

“Positive,” Sirius said, drinking in the half-quirked smile that blossomed on Remus’ face.

 

Tentatively, Sirius fully admitted to himself that he had a crush on Remus. More than a crush. He _yearned._ Maybe it wasn’t human love, maybe Sirius had no idea what it was, but he wanted.

 

He wanted, he wanted, he wanted, he—

 

☽☽☽

 

Excluding the museum and movie day, the remainder of October was the longest of Sirius’ entire existence. Remus smiled at Sirius and assured him everything was okay but they never spent a moment alone anymore. It was always Remus and Sirius and James. Or Remus and Sirius and Lily. Or Remus and Sirius and James _and Lily._ Or even worse, Remus wanting to spend time with just Lily or James without Sirius.

 

If Sirius didn’t have the demon mental catalogue where he could go back and look through memories, he’d assume he went crazy and imagined the museum day.

 

If Sirius had known how precious his relationship with Remus had grown after their beach trip, Sirius never would have jeopardized it like he had—well, he couldn’t have controlled the almost dying part, but—he just really, really hated himself for the way he and Remus barely even touched each other anymore, hardly said something between the two of them alone.

 

The only thing Sirius had to desperately grasp onto—to tell him all was not lost, was the unspoken agreement that Sirius stay with Remus while he fell asleep. Watching over him like a Knight in shining armor while Remus’ sleep medications took effect.

 

Three of the fourteen nights, Sirius didn’t even have this one last good thing. He had been kicked out of Remus’ apartment and replaced by James, per Remus’ request when he started crying over how the medication made him feel crazy and blurry.

 

“It’s okay, Moony, there’s nothing here, I can protect you,” Sirius shushed one time—he had told James watching horror movies on this dumb monster holiday was a terrible choice.

 

Remus sat up in bed, hunched over his lap. He panted heavily and squeezed his head with his hands, some of his breaths coming out as choked sobs. “I can’t—I can’t stay awake, I can feel my body shutting down—my heart,” Remus babbled, cutting off to breathe in three sharp breaths. “Get James, I want James.”

 

“Remus—”

 

“Leave, Sirius. _Please._ ”

 

☽☽☽

 

Lily brought Sirius to an abandoned warehouse. She handed him a bag filled with glass bottles and sat on the concrete ground, offering nothing but her company as Sirius chucked bottle after bottle at the walls, shattered glass spraying everywhere.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [spoon theory](https://butyoudontlooksick.com/articles/written-by-christine/the-spoon-theory/)
> 
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> [the bunny book Sirius referred to](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrjLWMQ6WaQ)
> 
> you can follow me on tumblr here [siriuslysarcasticremus](https://siriuslysarcasticremus.tumblr.com/)


	10. no take backsies (November)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> heads up for mildly sexual content

**_November_ **

 

James had been talking about it for ages—since August in their heat of petty arguing—but Sirius thought nothing of it. Remus had grunted every time James brought the topic up, so Sirius adopted the same attitude.

 

That is until James strut into the apartment, demanding Remus to shower.

 

Rolling his eyes, Remus stood up from the couch, his knees cracking. “I did my laundry like you asked, _Mom_ ,” he said to James.

 

No one was more surprised than Sirius yesterday when Remus, out of nowhere, voluntarily asked if Sirius wanted to accompany him to the laundromat downstairs. The swishing sound of the machines cycling grated on Sirius at first but soon, it became a relaxing white noise. Only a few people came in during the two hours they hung out there, otherwise they were alone in this strange little pocket universe that suspended time. Remus called it a _liminal space._

 

He also taught Sirius how to play a charming card game called _Go Fish._

 

“Just don’t pick out anything too tight,” Remus warned, leveling James a look as he walked backward to the bathroom. “I’ve gained some weight recently.”

 

Sirius met the glare Remus shot him with an extremely self-satisfied grin. He mentally patted himself on his back, _good job, Sirius, look how well you’re taking care of your human._

 

Remus rolled his eyes but Sirius caught a glimpse of a sweet smile as the bathroom door shut. Whipping his head dramatically to the doorway, Sirius eyed James, who grinned slyly as he closed the apartment door. His paranoia about how easily Remus surrendered into taking a shower skyrocketed.

 

Speaking slowly, Sirius asked, “What are you doing?”

 

Eyes practically glowing, James walked to the bedroom, beckoning Sirius to follow him.

 

☽☽☽

 

Sirius did _not_ like what he saw.

 

Well, he didn’t like the _implications_ of what he saw.

 

“You don’t think it looks too tight?” Remus asked, pulling on the belt loops of his jeans, hiking them up higher by less than a centimeter.

 

“Honey, there is no such thing as too tight,” James said. His voice shifted from flirty to concerned in a heartbeat. “Why? Are you uncomfortable? Do you have enough breathing room?”

 

Remus waved away James’ questions. “I just.” Remus cut himself off with a sigh, turning his side to the mirror and twisting to frown downwards at his reflection. “Don’t you think it highlights how flat my ass is?”

 

Sirius choked on his spit.

 

“Babe, it highlights how fantastic your ass is. Very round,” James said seriously, adding, “pert.”

 

Remus squinted at the mirror, twisting further to look, taking this into utmost consideration. Sirius had no idea how they were talking about this so calmly. He wanted to die. Or throw up. He didn’t know what that felt like but he’d heard enough humans say that phrase to gather the meaning of puking up your guts.

 

“Maybe.” Remus decided at last with a one-shoulder shrug. He bent down and rolled the bottom of his dark blue jeans up to his ankles. It gave Sirius an excellent view of the ass in question and Sirius wasn’t going to make any comments, but. Well.

 

Sirius wanted to hug Remus’ ass. He was fucking jealous of a pair of jeans.

 

It just looked so...round. And nice.

 

Squishy.

 

“And you’re sure I won’t be cold?” Remus straightened up, his attention now on his top-wear.

 

“Yep.” James had his phone out now, thumb flicking as he played a game. At the same time, he tapped his right foot to some random beat.

 

“What if I get hot?”

 

“You’re not wearing grey so there won’t be any awk sweat stains and I mean, no one would object to you taking your hoodie off if you needed to.”

 

“ _James,_ ” Sirius and Remus said at the same time.

 

Remus and James’ heads snapped to Sirius, curious to what his objection to James’ casual lewdness was about. James watched Sirius with an expectant smirk, the smug bastard, and Sirius’ punished human, bless his Innocent soul, looked adorably bewildered.

 

“Uh, I just, uh,” Sirius floundered, “I could bring a white t-shirt—you could put one in a bag and I can watch your stuff,” Sirius finished lamely. “In case, you know. You want to, uh, to take off your...hoodie.”

 

The hoodie in question was a thin cotton crop top with a hood and drawstrings that Remus cutely fiddled with. The dark blue material matched his complexion well, though Sirius had no idea what that really meant. His tanned skin and freckles looked darker, healthy, and his eyes appeared lighter, the green specks more visible within the brown hazel.

 

Oh, and it displayed Remus’ belly button ring because the hoodie stopped at the bottom of his punished human’s ribcage and he wore _nothing underneath it._

 

Thus, shirt. That Sirius would now carry, apparently. And desperately hope he wouldn’t carry for long because his punished human hopefully would gain some sense and wear it.

 

Remus grasped Sirius’ forearm, his expression soft and warm. “Really? You wouldn’t mind?”

 

A small squeaking sound emerged in the back of Sirius’ throat. James visibly bit his tongue, clearly enjoying the hell out of Sirius’ suffering.

 

“Yeah, sure,” Sirius said, shrugging with pseudo nonchalance. His mind went haywire about how warm his punished human’s hand was—and still holding onto him, something that hadn’t happened in a month. He didn’t even mind when Remus let go, not when he was on the receiving end of a gentle smile and the cause of Remus’ shoulders relaxing.

 

Fuck, this was going to be a long, long fucking night.

 

☽☽☽

 

Fuck James Potter and his fucking party.

 

“Fuck James Potter and his fucking party,” Sirius said to Lily. He threw the dumb bag with Remus’ white t-shirt into his pocket universe an hour ago when it became clear Remus wouldn’t need it.

 

“Thank you for keeping me updated with your assessment,” Lily drawled. “Going on strong for two hours now. Will you just relax?”

 

“No,” Sirius said, crossing his arms.

 

“Just get a Twitter and tweet to the pining angst gay masses,” Lily said. She shifted closer and informed him, “You’re going to attract more people if you pout like that.”

 

“Argh!” Sirius crouched and stepped behind Lily, hiding from James’ friends before going invisible. “Stupid horny humans,” Sirius said in the Creature plane. Remus had conditioned him into being overwhelmingly happy any time he shifted into human form. Sirius forgot how much he truly hated it around other humans in settings like this.

 

Lily laughed, the sound a bright source. More than a few people glanced over at her and heavy relief washed over Sirius about not being in sight. The two of them together attracted people like newly turned zombies to loud, vulnerable humans. As long as no one crossed a line, which happened more than it should, Lily was fine with the attention, however.

 

Sirius, on the other hand, hated it very much. He wanted to be admired from afar. And for people to not have indecent thoughts about him. _Gross. Ugh._

 

“What’s he saying,” Remus asked, nearly walking through Sirius. It made something funny twist inside Sirius to know his punished human immediately assumed Lily laughing alone meant Sirius said something in the Creature plane.

 

“The usual. Humans are stupid and horny.”

 

Remus grinned, ducking his head as he shook it. His hair flopped over his forehead, curling with sweat. Glancing around, Remus’ eyes unknowingly settled on Sirius for a moment. Sirius stupidly wished that this was like a sappy cliché book where his punished human magically knew exactly where Sirius stood even when he was invisible.

 

Alas, Remus spoke to the ground as he mumbled, “Are you having any fun, at least?”

 

With an imperceptible sigh to anyone but Sirius, Lily, the goddess that she was and wasn’t, lied, “He’s not here right now, but he’s getting a real _kick_ out of the party.” She kicked her leg out jokingly, except not to Sirius, as she hit him in the shin.

 

“Yeah, yeah, eavesdropping is a violation of boundaries blah, blah,” Sirius snarked at her.

 

Remus didn’t look like he bought either statement from Lily, but Sirius wasn’t making any sign to the human world, so he shrugged. “Pity. I was hoping he’d come on the dance floor.”

 

Okay, so maybe the ugly mass of sweaty bodies rubbing against each other wasn’t that unappealing. Sirius regretted hiding. Too much dignity to show up, now, though. Goddamn _c’est la vie._

 

“I’d love to join you—” _traitor!_ “—but I have to say,” Lily mused, “I’m surprised you haven’t danced, yet.”

 

Did Remus’ cheeks look this flushed a few minutes ago?

 

Lily tilted her head, a strange expression on her face while she examined Sirius’ punished human. Remus’ eyes became extra shifty. Sirius looked back and forth between them, hopelessly trying to understand. Lily poked Remus’ arm repeatedly until Remus gave up on swatting her away, relenting.

 

“Okay, okay,” he said. “There’s...I think a guy might be giving me eyes.”

 

“Giving you eyes?” Sirius repeated, forgetting Remus couldn’t hear him and that he wasn’t supposed to be there, technically, anyway.

 

“Who?” Lily asked. “Oh, wait, the guy in the cut-off shorts?” Remus nodded, twisting his hands. Lily whistled. “Oh, he’s giving you eyes alright.”

 

Oh holy hell, Sirius regretted hiding like he never regretted anything else before.

 

To make matters worse, James jumped out from a gaggle of people, draping himself over Remus’ back. Of-fucking-course James would be here now.

 

“Eyes? Who’s giving eyes? To my baby? Bedroom eyes?” James popped one question after another, words falling over each other. He pressed a sloppy kiss to Remus’ cheek and let go, coming to stand between Remus and Lily, unknowingly knocking Sirius out of the way. He placed his hand on his hip and joked, “Bedroom eyes? To _my_ Remus? It’s more likely than you think.”

 

“Shut up. But. Yeah, um. Him?” Remus subtly moved his shoulder to point out the guy. “Don’t look no—Prongs! Oh, god,” Remus covered his face.

 

The man in question looked at Remus, Lily, and James in amusement. He was shorter than Remus, wore even shorter shorts—more than halfway up his thighs!—and was barefoot. Barefoot. On the dirty with-questionable-wet-spots ground of the apartment building.

 

What the literal fuck.

 

“Moony. _Moony._ Get. It.” James grasped Remus by the shoulders, looking deeply into Remus’ eyes. “You get that piece of ass, son.”

 

Sirius never thought the day would come where Remus would take actual advice from James Potter—not only take it, but _ask_ for it. Actual life advice and not mental advice.

 

“You think he’s cool?” Remus rubbed his palms on his jeans. “Like he’s good with the whole ‘messed in the head thing’?”

 

 _What. What, what, what._ This was dancing? Why would that matter? It wasn’t—it wasn’t like Remus— _Sirius’_ human was going to, to see this person again. Consistently. Intimately enough that illnesses mattered or interfered.

 

Right?

 

“Shut up, Remmy, you think I’d even let him be here if I thought he was an asshole? He’d be messed in the head if he didn’t like you.” Sirius gaped in horror as James lightly squeezed Remus’ shoulder, eyes soft and mushy.

 

Remus nodded, once, twice, looked at the guy, looked away quickly with blooming red cheeks. He took a deep breath and met James’ eyes with confidence. “I can dance?” he checked.

 

“Yeah! Of course! Go get him, Remus, you got this.” James nudged Remus and Sirius never hated him more.

 

The way Remus stumbled and quickly regained composure to walk across the rooftop “dance floor” was the worst and most adorable thing Sirius had ever witnessed.

 

“Hey,” James said, thoughtful. “Where’s Paddy-wads?”

 

Sirius made his voice hearable and made a loud popping sound right into James’ ear.

 

“Ow!” James lurched forward, grabbing his ear. “Oh, fuck you, dude!”

 

Lily snickered.

 

☽☽☽

 

Lily kept a sharp eye on Sirius anytime he tried to creep over to Remus, so he was stuck here, next to the dumb coolers of dumb drinks, dumbly watch his dumb human and his dumb human’s dumb suitor talk and laugh next to the roof’s edge.

 

He tried to go into demon form while invisible, to use his super hearing, but Lily narrowed her eyes menacingly and mouthed _too far_. Her glare lessened when he backed up to the coolers and went visibly human. After a nod of approval, she happily went to dance with some pretty girl. Sirius was pretty sure they were dirty talking in Mandarin, from the few words Sirius remembered when Lily picked up that language.

 

Sirius was equally disgusted with and envious of her. Why couldn’t he be sultry and sensual? Remus had wanted to ask Sirius to go on the dance floor and if Sirius wasn’t such a baby he could be in Lily’s place. But dirty talking in English. Well, probably not dirty talking.

 

Fuck, why was Sirius so defective? Maybe if he lived in human form for several eras like Lily had he would develop human-like sexuality and romance, but he had an impression that would never happen. He’d been gaining some…interest, lately, but he it was only in very limited parameters.

 

The human flirting with Remus, laughing and touching Remus’ upper arm, clearly could give Remus what he wanted. He wasn’t subtle in checking Remus out repeatedly and he didn’t seem like he wanted to be subtle about it at all.

 

Sirius wanted to kiss Remus’ exposed soft tummy and hold his butt and pet his soft hair and maybe lick his neck or something.

 

Sirius was having a lot of confusing feelings.

 

“Hey, Mister Grumpy Gills,” James said, saddling up to Sirius and opening up a can of coke.

 

“Caffeine,” Sirius grunted.

 

“I’ll be fine, _Mom_ ,” James said. He took a long gulp and sighed. His whole body screamed content and Sirius considered Peter. Remus’ suitor would be sacrificed first, obviously, but Peter was a hungry growing boy. Siren. Whatever.

 

“I thought you were on my side,” Sirius snapped. His heart seized as he watched Remus’ suitor pull him toward the dance floor. Remus shook his head, laughing, before giving in.

 

“If you don’t make a move,” James trailed off. “Look, happy is happy, alright? And I want Remus to be happy. Yeah, with you, that would be happiest. But since you’re not doing anything—” he pointed to Remus, who despite having a nervous smile, did look to enjoy himself as he shuffled to the beat. “Happy,” James said simply.

 

“What about _him_ ,” Sirius spat, doing his best to ignore the intimate dancing going on between Remus and his courtier. “Remus isn’t making a move on me, either. Why is it my fault!”

 

James rolled his eyes. “It’s different. You gotta make the move here, bro. You told him demons don’t do relationships.”

 

Sirius knew he needed to make a move before, but he hadn’t because—

 

Whatever. Now there was a _threat._ This was a whole new playing field. And Sirius was not going to be benched or put on the sidelines.

 

“Whatever you’re going to do, don’t be an asshole,” James pleaded. “You’re my brother but I’ll kill you if you hurt him and I don’t want to kill you.”

 

In the blink of an eye, James disappeared onto the dance floor.

 

“Don’t be an asshole. Don’t be an asshole,” Sirius muttered to himself as he made his way through people to find Lily. Remus’ sexual courtier kissed Remus’ neck, his arms looped around Remus’ waist, as they grinded together. Sirius’ skin shimmered every few seconds with the urge to go demon. “Don’t be an asshole.” He grit his teeth. “Don’t be an asshole.”

 

“Too late,” Lily piped up from behind Sirius. He spun on his heel and she sipped from a beer can with her pinky raised. “You’ve been one all night. Now, what do you need from me?” She asked, calling him dummy in Mandarin.

 

“Wing me,” Sirius said quickly.

 

Handing her beer to Sirius, Lily went rigid in posture and cracked her knuckles as she scanned the groups of people on the rooftop. It would be hilarious in another situation, her dramatic flip into Mission Mode. Right now, it was nothing short of awe-inspiring and tears prick his eyes.

 

“Her,” Lily said decisively after a minute.

 

Sirius followed her gaze to a mousy little woman who looked like nothing special besides a bright streak of purple running through her hair. She wore high-waisted loose brown pants and a white collared shirt with enormous wire-frame glasses. _Hipster,_ Sirius thought, quite proud he identified her aesthetic.

 

If it weren’t for it being Lily, Sirius would have questioned the choice.

 

“‘K, I’ll bump her into him and you grab Remus,” Lily ordered, waiting for Sirius to nod. “I’m timing this just right so you can teleport Remus to the apartment without people seeing. Be quick and make it worth it, okay?”

 

Sirius nodded and she patted his cheek, half-loving and half a slap.

 

☽☽☽

 

“Oh dear,” Lily’s voice, high pitched, “I am _so sorry,_ my _gosh_ —”

 

Remus fell back and Sirius—holy shit, Lily timed it _perfectly—_ caught him right as the mass of drunk dancers moved to obscure them from Remus’ suitor. Sirius wasted a second to say, “Sorry,” before he teleported him and Remus down to the apartment.

 

☽☽☽

 

“Oh shhh—” Remus started to swear, burped into his hand, and moaned, “I think I threw up a little.”

 

“Um. You always wanted to teleport?” Sirius offered in consolation.

 

“Wait, what, oh my god, where’s Frank? Why am I in our apartment? Pads?” Remus stared at Sirius with such round, confused eyes that Sirius felt like the biggest tool ever.

 

“I...brought...you...here?” Sirius said, ending his sentence as a question again.

 

Remus’ eyebrows pinched together. “What?”

 

Sirius mentally went through every romance book and blog he read, pulled his shoulders back, and walked to the coffee table. He grabbed the glass of water there and pressed it into Remus’ hands because vomit-breath? Not good for kissing—right? Probably.

 

Taking a long sip, Remus studied Sirius. He kept drinking, and Sirius suspected it was to buy time. He finished half of it, wiped his mouth, and said quite calmly, “Padfoot, what the lit-er-al fuck?”

 

“Here goes it,” Sirius said, strutting forward.

 

Remus’ eyes widened. “Wha—”

 

Shoving Remus against the M.C.B.A.— _oh please bring Sirius luck, please, please, fucking please bring him luck—_ and pressing him into the wall, Sirius smashed his mouth to Remus’.

 

Smashed.

 

There really was no other word for it. The back of Remus’ head even thunked against the wall with the force of it and he mumbled _ow_ against Sirius’ lips.

 

Okay, wow, this was not as easy as the books made it. There was no natural instinct kicking in. Oh, shit, what did they say to do—Sirius usually skimmed through those parts super fast, oh—biting! Biting?

 

Carefully, Sirius fumbled and amazingly, somehow, he got Remus’ bottom lip into his mouth. Into Sirius’ mouth. Woah. It was. Very. Soft? Squishy. Too scared to bite it, Sirius sucked gently.

 

Remus made a surprised noise as Sirius sucked Remus' lower lip in and releasing it a little, tugging it back in and away again—this was kind of fun!

 

And then Remus, out of fucking nowhere, fisted—oh shit don’t think that word, Sirius thought furiously, he had read something disturbing about fists—his hands in Sirius’ shirt, yanking him impossibly closer and giving Sirius all he had. Which was to say, _a lot._

 

_Damn, he really knows what he’s doing._

 

Sirius closed his eyes, celebrating—life was like those books! The kissing did “suddenly” get intense! Sirius’ experienced lover took over and showed him how to do it! Sadly, no tongues joined in the fun—wow, this was fun!—Sirius _really_ wanted to fight with his tongue for dominance, like the books phrased it.

 

Remus pulled back and Sirius chased his lips, making a small wounded sound at the loss. Remus changed his hands to hold Sirius back, breathing heavy. Oh, right, humans. Breathing.

 

“Wait, wait. No,” Remus said shakily.

 

_Oh no oh no this wasn’t breathing this was rejection oh fuck oh mother—_

 

“What are you doing?” Remus asked.

 

“Um.” Sirius wilted. “Kissing?”

 

“Why,” Remus said, his voice cracking and sounding heartbroken. “We can’t do this. We can’t.” He pushed Sirius and speed-walked to the couch, collapsing onto it and burying his face into his hands.

 

“Why not?” Sirius poorly contained his anger. He followed Remus, instantly feeling a little calmer being on their couch. A sense of safety came over him, even as his human heart shattered.

 

“Why did you take me from Frank?” Remus had his no-nonsense voice on, and from experience with Lily, Sirius knew there was no way he could lie around this.

 

“Because I was bloody jealous, alright? I was jealous,” Sirius said, wanting to repeat it a thousand times now that it was out. “I wanted to kill him.”

 

Remus’ alarmed face rose from his hands and Sirius hurried to say, “I’m not going to. Obviously.”

 

“Obviously,” Remus repeated flatly.

 

“I’m literally bearing my heart out to you right now and you’re going to be Mister Sarcastic? I fucking—” Sirius grunted. Why feelings? Just. Why can’t they kiss— _actions were better than words_ , Remus had said once, the hypocritical bastard.

 

“You…?” Remus prompted.

 

“Do you like me?” Sirius blurted. Yes, good, flip this to Remus’ side.

 

Face carefully blank, Remus said, “I don’t see why that is relevant at all.”

 

And the anger returned. “Of course it’s relevant!”

 

Scrunching his eyes shut, Remus ground his teeth. He kept his eyes closed as he spoke. “Padfoot. You’re my best friend but I’m not your…thing. I’m not _yours._ You don’t own me. Just because someone shows interest in me, it doesn’t mean you can grab me away like a toy. And kiss me—God! You can’t just do that!” He snapped his eyes open, looking furious and hurt. “I like that stuff even if I don’t know a person well but it’s not—I don’t. It still has to _mean_ something.”

 

Sirius opened and closed his mouth like some dumb fish. “But it did mean something. I don’t want to be your best friend.”

 

“You’re my sleep demon, I know,” Remus cut in sourly.

 

“No! Ugh, fuck, let me speak. Wait—did you—does that upset you?”

 

Remus expression softened. “No. I told you, you’re my best friend. You can’t control your nature and I love you regardless, Pads.”

 

“And I love you." Sirius fucking threw himself out into the open. “I love you. I don’t know human feelings and demons aren’t capable of like...emotion stuff, but I do. In whatever way I can, I...love you.” Hell, he was so lame. He was such a loser. Fuck.

 

“Repeat that?”

 

Fuck Remus for being so calm.

 

“I love you, you sadistic bastard? You’re like ripping my heart out here. I’ve researched this and shit. I can’t believe I love your dumb face.”

 

“Research,” Remus repeated faintly.

 

“Like, sexuality and romance spectrums. Do we have to get technical—”

 

“Yes,” Remus said firmly.

 

“—and I talked about it with James—”

 

“Oh dear _god_.”

 

“Remus! Just. Do you. Love me?” Sirius ran a hand through his hair, scratching his scalp a little too roughly. “For fuck’s sake.”

 

“Yes. I mean, I like you. I like you so fucking much,” Remus laughed a touch hysterically, “Christ. I like you so much. I could fall so easily, but I haven’t because you said you didn’t do relationships.”

 

“Well. Exceptions can be made,” Sirius spoke awkwardly. “So. You’re not wrong.”

 

“Oh, you absolute, ridiculous dork,” Remus said, lunging across the couch and into Sirius’ lap. He smashed their lips together this time, except with finesse. Their lips made a little _mwah_ sound when Remus pulled back and leaned his forehead against Sirius’. “You really mean it? You love me?”

 

“Yes, yes, a thousand times yes.”

 

“And you want to be in a relationship with me? For real?”

 

“No take backsies,” Sirius promised softly. Sirius loved this couch. He loved this apartment. He loved Remus’ hazel eyes and freckles and he loved this human world and he loved, loved, loved Remus John Lupin.

 

“I’m sorry that was your first kiss,” Remus whispered. “May I kiss you? Properly, this time.”

 

“Please,” Sirius said, needy in a way he never realized he could be.

 

“Close your eyes,” Remus instructed.

 

Sirius did. In the darkness, something soft pressed against Sirius’ lips. Parting his lips, Sirius paid attention more as Remus took this painfully slow. Painfully sweet, too. It was less fun, to be honest, but it made Sirius’ toes tingle. Remus cupped Sirius’ cheek and he felt so incredibly _cared_ for. He sighed into Remus’ mouth and he could _feel_ the curve of Remus’ lips in a smile.

 

And then a small pressure pushed Sirius’ lips wider and _oh—_ tongue. Sirius didn’t know if he liked it. He opened his mouth wider and pushed back with his tongue and—yes, that was much more fun being in Remus’ mouth. He poked experimentally at Remus’ teeth.

 

Remus shifted in Sirius lap, rearranging them in a position that gave Remus more power and Sirius stilled as Remus’ hands began wandering, rubbing soothingly up and down Sirius’ arms.

 

Sirius’ throat made a strange, embarrassing sound. Deliriously, he thought _I really am That Bitch—the Virgin™ archetype in romance stories._

 

Remus used the shock to regain Dominance with his tongue and every time Sirius tried to take the reigns, Remus used his hands to distract Sirius into slowing down.

 

“This okay?” Remus mumbled as he slipped his hands under Sirius’ shirt.

 

“Very okay. So, so okay,” Sirius said, basically moaned.

 

His human belly did a Thing it never did before—it was like he was flushing down there, heat pooling in. He had no idea what his lips were doing—it was a vague, nice sensation of feeling connected—but his mind was short-circuiting on Remus’ simple, not even sexual, touch. He wanted to be touched everywhere all at once and excitement built along with the heat and he was a little afraid he might cry.

 

Remus shifted and—

 

“HOLY FUCK!” Sirius pulled back and pointed at his crotch. He quickly undid his pants and pulled his underwear forward. “Woah, you gotta look at this!”

 

Remus pressed his forehead into Sirius’ shoulder, his unsteady breathing changing into quiet laughter. “Very impressive.”

 

“My first time,” Sirius boasted.

 

“Mm, tell me more,” Remus half-teased.

 

“Why don’t you guide your holy member into my most intimate heat cavern?”

 

To be fair, Remus really did try his best to quiet down his hysterical laughter. “Oh my god, what?”

 

“If you’re going to be rude, I’m not going to share my first boner with you,” Sirius snapped half-heartedly. He opened his underwear again, staring down in wonder. “This is epic.”

 

Remus laughed so hard he didn’t make a sound.

 

☽☽☽

 

“You know we’re going to have to communicate.” Remus nudged Sirius with his knee. They were lying in bed now, hands intertwined as they stared into each other’s eyes like giant saps. “Like, hella communication.”

 

“Says Mister Emotional Constipation,” Sirius said, raising an eyebrow.

 

“Oh, shut up.”

 

They grin.

 

“So...like. Will you put your thing in my thing?”

 

Remus smushed Sirius’ face with his hand. “I’m trying to be serious.”

 

“So am I!” Sirius wished he could make a joke about his name.

 

“Okay. One, we’re going on dates before more happens and we’re going slow. Two, I thought you didn’t want me to touch you below the waist?”

 

“Don’t touch my thingy,” Sirius said, scandalized. “Let me have some time with it first. And that’s....weird. But like.” Sirius turned his head and stuffed his face into the pillow, admitting, “I want you to be inside me?”

 

“Hey. There’s no need to be ashamed, okay? We’re a team. James will kill us if one of use makes the other uncomfortable.” That made Sirius chuckle a bit. “And you enjoy being close physically, it seems. I like that, too. I like making you feel good even if it’s different than how I feel.”

 

Sirius harrumphed and Remus kissed the back of his head. Sirius brought his face out to lean up and peck Remus on the lips, grinning because that was a Thing he could do now.

 

“You won’t leave me, right?”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

Remus chewed nervously on his bottom lip. “Just. You promise this is what you want?”

 

“Yes, Remus.” Sirius cupped Remus’ cheek, his heart flutter when Remus leaned into it, rubbing his face into Sirius’ palm. “I swear.”

 

“You’ll be here in the morning?” Remus closed his eyes as he whispered.

 

“Right here,” Sirius said. “I promise.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you can follow me on tumblr here [siriuslysarcasticremus](https://siriuslysarcasticremus.tumblr.com/)


	11. a name (November-Unknown Time)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for sleep demon torture and captivity (brief and skimmed over)

_**November, the following morning** _

 

The sun barely broke over the horizon when a black swirling portal appeared next to Remus’ bed.

 

“No, no, no,” Sirius gasped. “No!”

 

The portal sucked him out of Remus’ limp, sleepy arms and into the hole.

 

☽☽☽

 

“You never do learn, do you?” A voice drawled. “Loving a human. Take him away, Darks.”

 

The Head of the Dark Council waved his hands and floated away.

 

“Wait! I have the right to a trial!” Sirius screamed. His mind swirled with fuzziness. “What the hell!”

 

Two pairs of strong demon arms manhandled Sirius.

 

Sirius sent out, for the very first time, a Call to Lily, frantic.

 

☽☽☽

 

“So, demons have jail now,” Sirius dryly remarked.

 

The two goons manhandling him shoved him roughly into the floating square with barely seeable translucent walls that were—yep, indestructible.

 

“Jail,” one of them sneered at Sirius from the outside, their words slightly muffled. “Don’t be so _human_.”

 

**_Unknown month_ **

 

Lily couldn’t have known but, _fuck,_  this hurt like a motherfucking bloody fucking asshole of a bastard.

 

Sirius squeezed from his nothingness form into his demon form so quickly that he collapsed and retched weakly. A small ball of negative energy, not unlike a cat fur-ball, escaped him before slithering back into his body.

 

“Oh shit, oh shit,” Lily’s voice whispered furiously. She had infiltrated his cell, but it seemed the only way to have reached him was by coming and staying in her own nothingness form—something he hadn’t seen in years. How incredibly strange it was, to hear her and know she was there but not see her.

 

Unfortunately, Dark and Light sleep demons didn’t mix well together when mutually in nothingness form. Existing in that state was the most vulnerable way to carry energy and demons of opposite natures were either pulled in or repulsed apart.

 

Lily’s nothingness had pulled Sirius in, her Light energy fruitlessly attempting to latch onto him and causing him indescribable pain. From her grunt, he assumed his dark energy tried to attach to her as well.

 

Him being in demon form brought things back under control but any small changes threw Sirius completely off for hours now. He didn’t know how he’d recover from using this much energy to shift. He curled up in fetal position, nursing the flare of anger at Lily and telling himself she couldn’t have known how much pain he was already in and how that nearly pushed him over the edge.

 

“They—they’re—they are _starving you_ ,” Lily finished breathlessly in horror. “You’re swimming in dark energy!”

 

“I’m allowed to release every six days,” Sirius grit out. His demon form flickered, his outer edges shimmering, his nature wanting to go back into nothingness out of survival instincts. Nothingness required the least energy and he had barely any energy to spare.

 

“How is that possible?” Lily asked.

 

Sirius didn’t know to what she inquired—the cruelty of the punishment or to how he released the energy. While the cruelty wasn’t much of a surprise, the method of having another Dark come into his cell, one who freshly dumped energy, to coax Sirius’ dark energy out and into them was interesting. Sirius didn’t have the time for words, however. “Time,” he wheezed out.

 

“It’s been weeks, we’ve been so worried.” Lily’s voice was wrecked, “ _I’_ ve been so worried.”

 

“You need to go,” Sirius said, mustering his remaining strength. Tomorrow would be his sixth day in the cycle and he’d be rid of some of this pain, but right now he was brimming with darkness, his nature whipping back and forth in indecision to stay together or burst into a thousand pieces of nonexistence. “Stay with—Remus. Remus. B—ad demons. Dark. Vengeance.” He’d overheard Darks making comments about Remus—Sirius had so many enemies in the community.

 

“Sirius—”

 

“ _Go_ ,” he said. “Go,” he repeated, his voice wet and horribly shuddering and croaking.

 

_He was on fire, he was on fire, he wasn’t going to last, he couldn’t handle this, he couldn’t sit with this, it was too much, too much, far too much—_

 

☽☽☽

 

The next day of true coherence, Sirius wasn’t sure how much time passed. All he knew was pain and pain and more pain. And darkness. Strangely, his eyes now burned with the brightness of light.

 

He stood in a courtroom. “Um. Sorry?” he said hoarsely. In his blurry vision, a severe-looking woman watched him impassively.

 

She tsked. He had no idea who she was, which meant she had to be a Light. How in the hell did he end up in the midst of Lights? “I asked,” the Light said, “if demon Lily may speak on your behalf seeing as you are,” the Light struggled for a phrase, “...compromised.”

 

Sirius distantly noted rumbles at the word choice, of numerous demons listening in.

 

 _Lily_. He clung onto that thought. “Y-es,” he said, his head feeling incredibly heavy.

 

Oh. Those were very yellow eyes staring at him. No, wait, green. Oh. Lily. When did she appear here?

 

“Don’t worry, Ser,” he heard over the buzzing in his ears, “I’m saving you.”

 

“Yeet,” the word emerged weakly from Sirius’ lips.

 

“Yes,” Lily agreed, sounding relieved and teary. “We’re going to yeet you out of here.”

 

“Good,” Sirius said, and then passed out on the courtroom floor.

 

☽☽☽

 

“To Remus?” Lily asked, full of so much happiness and concern. She supported all of Sirius’ demon weight, tucking him under her arm.

 

As nice as that would be, having Remus nurse him back to—well, as healthy as a sleep demon can be, Sirius found himself hesitating with his newfound, unbelievable freedom. All thanks to Lily. Holy Hell, Sirius had no idea what he did to deserve her. He thanked the universe that she was actually infamous among higher-ups in a positive way rather than a negative way, like Sirius.

 

The first Light-Dark court case in _history._ History was a heavy word among Creatures and it said something that Lights and Darks had never come together before now on decisions for one of the other’s kind.

 

“Paris?” Sirius asked. He was lucid enough to have the beginnings of shame at how weak and small he sounded. He wanted Remus, he wanted him so damn bad, and the right thing would be to find him and deliver his promise to never leave, but—

 

Sirius needed a little time to recover on his own.

 

“Ever been to Slovakia?” Lily asked.

 

“Probably. With dissociation,” Sirius tested the word out and then jumped right into joking, “who’s to say?”

 

“Let’s change that,” Lily said and held out her hand.

 

And they did.

 

☽☽☽

 

“Pads,” Remus said, voice raw and breathless. His hair was sleep tussled though Sirius knew he hadn’t been sleeping lately and he looked almost as ill as he did when Sirius was first assigned to him.

 

Sirius truly had the most stupid human, neglecting to care for himself. His stupid, stupid human that he loved so very, very much.

 

“Remus,” Sirius said. He cleared his throat. He could do this. _He could do this._ “I am a banished Dark sleep demon. I have no money. I have no tact. I don’t have much I can give you and what I can give is nightmares. If you’ll keep me, I will have to be your sleep demon for as long as you live. I will always give you bad dreams.” Sirius left out the condition that even if Remus rejected him—now or later—Sirius would always be stuck to Remus for as long as he lived; Sirius would never say a word about it and would do it invisibly if it came to it.

 

“If I—of course I’ll keep you,” Remus said, eyes wide.

 

“Then if you will,” Sirius started. “Then if you will,” he took a deep breath, “take me as I am.” With vulnerable confidence, Sirius changed into his demon form, slowing the process from human to his true form so Remus could see how different he was.

 

Remus reached out, stopped and looked to Sirius for permission. He gave a jerky nod. Soft hands ran over Sirius’ horns, his pointed ears, across the black scales of his chest, brushing the tips of his sharp claws.

 

 

He pulled back and asked, “And would you take me as I am?”

 

Only his stupid human could be this nervous about asking such a stupid question. “A Bisexual Man Trying His Best? Yes.”

 

Taking Sirius’ hand, Remus guided it until it rested against Remus’ cheek. Sirius could feel the slow heartbeat pulsing in the veins under Remus’ cool cheek. Remus pressed a kiss to Sirius’ palm and asked, “What’s your name?”

 

It was the first time Sirius’ tongue curled around his own name since meeting Lily.

 

“Sirius.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you can follow me on tumblr here [siriuslysarcasticremus](https://siriuslysarcasticremus.tumblr.com/)


	12. a good day; a good year (November)

**_November_ **

 

“Remus,” Sirius said, running his hand up and down Remus’ side. “You’re alright.”

 

The arm curled around Sirius tightened. Remus buried his head in Sirius’ hair, hiccuping a long inhale. Listening to Remus’ rapid heartbeat, Sirius pet his lover’s naked hipbone. Remus pulled Sirius closer onto his chest and Sirius went easily, hiking his leg further over Remus’.

 

“Please,” Remus rasped softly.

 

With the permission, Sirius sifted through the dark energy he had put into Remus’ head before bedtime, assessing Remus’ dreams and nightmares.

 

“No sharks,” Sirius said.

 

“No sharks,” Remus repeated.

 

“And James is okay. He would never say that.” When Remus stayed silent, Sirius gently nudged him.

 

“Is okay. Never say that,” Remus mumbled.

 

“Good,” Sirius praised. “You’re alright. It was just a nightmare. There are no Creatures here.”

 

Remus’ fingers curl into Sirius’ side. “Admit something?”

 

It hurt Sirius, not that he held it against his human. On bad days, Remus worried that Sirius was a hallucination or that he was hallucinating that Sirius was there when Sirius was in fact out running errands. Taking a picture of Sirius sometimes helped but when Remus really needed reassurance, he asked Sirius to admit something he’d never said before. Telling Remus something personal between the two of them never worked—Remus said a figment of his imagination would know every memory. So, Sirius told him things that he’d never admitted before, things Remus never would have imagined by himself but were undoubtedly something Sirius would do. Sirius didn’t mind confessing things, even when it turned out to be more embarrassing than not.

 

“Three months ago, a bartender at Starbucks flirted with you and I broke the vase Mrs.Potter sent you and disappeared for two days.”

 

Remus startled, sitting straight up and knocking Sirius up with him. “What,” he demanded. “You’re the one who broke the vase? I made James take out my garbage for a month because I thought he did it! And—that’s why you flaked on me? Is that when you brought me daisies when you came back?”

 

Sheepishly, Sirius nodded.

 

“Sirius,” Remus scolded. A little warm _zing_ went through Sirius, like every time Remus spoke his name.

 

“That’s my name,” Sirius said, teasing, happy to have distracted Remus if only for a little while, “don’t wear it out.”

 

Groaning, Remus flopped back down, hiding his face in his elbow. “You need to stop hanging out with James.”

 

A gust of wind blew in through the window, opened by Sirius’ “super duper demon powers” the moment Remus’ nightmare started. The chill helped bring Remus back into his body quicker. Poking Remus’ side, Sirius pushed the bedside water bottle into Remus’ hands.

 

“Three sips,” Sirius said. “Big ones.”

 

Remus glowered but it was sleepy and half-hearted. He looked and felt so soft and warm and it made Sirius feel impossibly charmed. Sirius grinned as Remus glared at him over the bottle.

 

“Better?” Sirius asked, stretching his muscles and letting his human form fall away into his demon one. He worried too much about hurting Remus with his horns at night when they slept but whenever they were alone, Sirius spent most of his time as a demon. “Want pancakes?”

 

“Yeah,” Remus begrudgingly agreed to the first question. Pancakes perked him. “Mm, chocolate chips ones? Wait—no, no,” he yanked Sirius down, “we can’t get up. You need to sleep more.”

 

Sirius easily shook off Remus’ hold in demon form. He propped himself up on his elbow and raised the forehead skin where a human eyebrow would be. He had sensed from the start that Remus’ nightmare eliminated all chances to sleep further, so he had been loud and playful instead of quiet and lulling. “Why?” he asked suspiciously.

 

“Because,” Remus replied. How Remus could lie so incredibly well and then so incredibly not, Sirius never understood. Sirius blinked at him, very much unimpressed, and Remus’ cheeks tinted pink. Sirius loved having his demon eyesight in the dark—loved that clarity of that blush. “You need your sleep,” Remus insisted lamely.

 

Sirius arched his eyebrow-skin high. Over the year, Sirius had tricked his body into going into a slumber-like state. He loved lying down with Remus and being tucked into Remus as he slept. He had worked hard at tapping into that nothingness state of mind while lying as a human. It was like sleeping, a bit, except he had no dreams and his body catalogued everything that happened, but Sirius enjoyed having a chunk of no-thinking time just snuggled up to his sweetheart.

 

Remus smushed his hand against Sirius’ face in annoyance. “Shut up. You _do_ need your ‘rest’ or else you get grumpy.”

 

“That’s,” Sirius started, all puffed up.

 

“True,” Remus cut in.

 

“You’re not wrong,” Sirius agreed unhappily.

 

“Come on, rest, please? Please, please? For me?”

 

That was unfair—Sirius never could deny Remus anything, especially if he asked him so sweetly. _Ugh._

 

_Dumb humans._

 

“Fine,” Sirius groaned out. “But something’s fishy and I want you to know that I know.”

 

Remus settled into the pillows, opening his arms invitingly. “Sure, babe,” he said playfully condescending. Sirius flopped onto Remus’ chest a little more roughly than he usually would, forcing a grunt out from his human.

 

Remus pet Sirius’ head. “Stay like you are,” he said in a hushed voice and Sirius uneasily kept his horns. It wasn’t like he was going to fall into a mindless rest and be at risk of hurting Remus.

 

Sirius rested like a log.

 

When he jerked into full consciousness, sunlight streamed through the window and he was lying on pillows instead of his human’s warm squishy flesh. He sat up slowly, switching to his human looks. He sensed more people in the apartment but James and Lily weren’t supposed to be back for a week.

 

“Remus?” Sirius called out. Full-blown panic hit his chest when there was no answer. “Babe?”

 

He heard the not-so-quiet whisper, “ _That is so cute—he calls you BABE?”_

 

“James, _shut up_.”—and that was unmistakably Lily.

 

“What in the literal hell,” Sirius said, walking out of the bedroom.

 

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY!”

 

Sirius blinked, laughed, and said, “What?” He took in the messy H-A-P-P-Y B-I-R-T-H-D-A-Y letters messily cut out of paper and glued onto a string. Lily held one end of it and James the other. The letters were bright and polka-dotted and striped and the D was filled-in with hearts. Between James and Lily, Remus had on a little triangle hat with a little fuzzy ball attached to the top. A tiny elastic string ran under his chin in the most adorable way to keep the hat in place on his head. He held up a _huge_ cactus. “Guys, _what_.” Sirius laughed, bracing himself on his knees.

 

“It’s your birthday, dude! On November 3rd, one year ago today, you smooched my boy and became part of the family,” James said, throwing an arm around Remus. “So. Birthday, duh. You needed one.”

 

“Surprise,” Lily said, smirking. She curled an arm around James’ waist.

 

“Happy birthday, love,” Remus said, doing the eye-crinkling lopsided smile. James made kissy faces.

 

They ended up going to the Potter’s to celebrate, which explained the weird call Sirius got from Mrs.Potter asking about his favorite dessert.

Mrs.Potter’s skin shined like moonlight. Her abundant freckles, all across her face and arms and collarbones and ankles—probably everywhere covered by clothes, too—offset her paleness. When Sirius first met her, he whispered to Remus that she was exactly how he wanted his chocolate chip ice cream to be—still vanilla but with at least 500% more chocolate. Mr.Potter, on the other hand, had leathery skin from tirelessly gardening and lying out in the sun. Mrs.Potter called him _deliciously_ tan.

 

“Isn’t your father _deliciously_ tan, baby?” She had asked James, who mimicked barfing sounds, the first time Lily and Sirius met her.

 

“Oh, very,” Lily had said, winking. Mrs. Potter lit up with delight while James squawked. It was times like then that Sirius was grateful for being a demon—he could go through his mind catalogue and replay that sound over and over. He regretted not being able to transfer it into video footage.

 

“Come in, come in,” Mrs.Potter said today, smiling. She wore high waisted beige pants and a t-shirt a size too large that had flowers arranged into the letters of HAPPY BIRTHDAY. “I hear we have a birthday boy in our midst.”

 

“Birth-DAY boy! Birth-DAY boy!” James chanted as he fist pumped the air. He pecked his mother on the cheek as he passed by the doorway. _Birth-DAY boy!_ echoed from within the house.

 

Lily shook her head fondly and followed after him, kissing Mrs.Potter on each cheek. Remus went next, being pulled into a big squeezing hug that lifted him off his feet. While Mr.Potter was even shorter than Remus, Mrs.Potter was around the same height as Sirius was in his demon form.

 

“Good to see you, love,” she said to Remus.

 

Sirius’ heart stuttered at the beautiful grin Remus gave Mrs.Potter. “Thanks, Mrs.P.”

 

Before Sirius could scuttle inside behind Remus, Mrs.Potter snatched him, embracing him almost as motherly as she had with Remus.

 

“Guh,” Sirius said.

 

“Oh, happy birthday, Padfoot,” she said into his ear. She pulled back enough to see his face, her arms still around his shoulders. “It’s so very good to see you.”

 

“Uh. Thanks. You, uh, you, too,” he said. People looking forward to his presence and being openly affectionate was still a strange concept.

 

She patted his shoulders and pushed him inside. Mr.Potter saluted him from across the living room in mid-speech with Lily. Sirius awkwardly waved back and then plastered himself to Remus on the couch.

 

They spent the day lounging in different parts of the house and snacking and watching t.v. and chatting and snacking some more. At one point Mr. Potter sent Remus and Sirius to scold Lily and James for making out in the garden. After shooing them away, Remus and Sirius spent their own wonderful time kissing among the flowers.

 

They ate dinner with big smiles, partly forced as they stomached Mrs.Potter’s food, and James snapped a picture of Sirius’ beet-red face when a giant cake emerged and they all sang to him.

 

At nine o’clock, James, Lily, Remus, and Sirius took to walking down the dark street.

 

“Damn, now let’s go eat some _real_ Indian food,” James said. He whipped his head behind him as if expecting his mother to be there. He blew a kiss in the direction toward his childhood home and called, “No offense, Mom! A-plus for effort.”

 

Remus shoved him and James faltered, only one leg keeping him standing as he went sideways before stumbling forward. He lunged and pulled Remus into a headlock.

 

Sirius and Lily slowed down behind them, bumping shoulders.

 

“Who knew, huh?” Lily said to him.

 

“Yeah, life’s pretty good, I guess,” Sirius said lightly. Lily threw an exasperated look at him. They hooked elbows and watched their humans fondly. Truly, though, who knew Sirius could have this life? The question ran through his head continuously as they crammed into a little table at James’ favorite Indian place in town. He absorbed the pure energy of Remus cram three pieces of naan into his face to keep anyone from stealing it and James snort water out his nose laughing and then snort Mango juice out his nose a minute later and Lily pretending not to cry over the spicy curry and the cheer they all let out when Sirius came back from the bathroom.

 

“I _peed_ , you pieces of shit! I peed, shut up!” Sirius hissed.

 

The best part of the day, Sirius had to admit, was when Remus fell asleep on him during the car ride home. By the time they got back to the apartment and through their nightly routine, Sirius floated in a content little bubble.

 

“Want to sleep on me?” Remus asked, like every night, as Sirius settled under the covers. And like every night, Sirius scooted forward before the words even left Remus’ mouth.

 

 

 

Settling on Remus’ bare chest, Sirius wrapped an arm loosely around Remus’ torso. They lied there like that, not speaking for quite some time. Sirius grew bored of the silence and started tracing patterns on Remus’ bare chest.

 

“Hey,” Remus said, slapping Sirius’ wandering hands. “Unless you want to go further I need you to stop.”

 

Sirius pouted. “Dumb libido.”

 

Snickering, Remus pressed a kiss to Sirius’ hair. “I’m too tired to finish off in the bathroom.”

 

“But you’re fine just lying there while I do all the work?”

 

“Pretty much, yeah.”

 

Sirius gently pressed his teeth on Remus’ nipple.

 

“Ow. We talked about pain kink, remember?”

 

Sirius blew a raspberry on Remus’ stomach. Of course he remembered. Sirius was bored to death with all their sex conversations. In the right mood, kissing entertained Sirius. He liked being pet everywhere and little kisses anywhere, too. As the year went on, he’d become more interested in his dick, though it fluctuated sporadically. Twice, he jacked off with Remus watching and lately, he thought more about Remus touching him someday. All sex was very good—Sirius loved loved loved pleasuring his human and knowing _he_ did that and was the one trusted to have this pleasure shared. Sirius was neither interested nor hard enough to ever top for anal but he liked bottoming, liked Remus being in him.

 

Kinks; hard no on pain and Daddy. Their dynamic was too fucked up to even bring in Dom/Sub undertones. Sirius’ maybes consisted solely of roleplay, which never ended up with sex the few times they did it, and Remus’ maybes were toys and vibrators to be used on him if Sirius ever wanted, which he hadn’t so far.

 

After an embarrassing banter between James and Remus happened in front of Lily, with James being dragged savagely, James fled to scrap whatever dignity he thought he had left together. Before slamming the door, the bastard shouted in a dirty move, “Remus reads tentacle porn fanfiction and Sirius is totally into cockwarming!”

 

“What’s cockwarming?” Sirius asked. Remus’ expression pinched in pain.

 

“Don’t worry, Remus,” Lily said calmly. “I’ll kill him for you.”

 

In retaliation an hour later Sirius used his phone for once and sent three O.K. hand sign emojis, two clapping hand emojis, a peach, a tongue, and _this is amazing thx sm love kinks ;))))_ He followed it up with a text of an eggplant and a sun. And then a third _get it??? Willy+warm_

 

**Prongs: Asxcvvfsazcdw**

****Prongs: *[DJ Khaled I Played Myself.jpg](http://memes.ucoz.com/news/i_played_myself_dj_khaled/2017-03-22-5592)*** **

 

_Ask lily if we can shapeshift into tentacles pls and thanx_

 

**Prongs: *[Guess I’ll Die.jpeg](https://imgur.com/gallery/QKeNZ)***

 

“I know tentacles are—ow! Forbidden topic, I know. I’m just saying like…” Sirius tilted his head up, grinning. “Are you a monster-fucker? Do you want to fuck me with demon horns? The D in D.I.L.F. stands for demon, you know.”

 

“Oh my god Sirius _go to sleep!”_

 

Sirius giggled helplessly at how flustered Remus sounded. When they transitioned back into peaceful cuddling, breathing in sync, Remus asked through a yawn, “Good day, babe?”

 

Sirius hummed.

 

Their last year together was full of everything.

 

Sirius started eating food—getting over his fear of pooping, which, as tonight clearly showed, his friends would never let him live down. His first shit was a doozy, he had to admit. Remus rubbed his back after, and continued to pamper him with little pecks the rest of the day. Peeing wasn’t nearly as bad, even if it was very strange. He loved collecting colored glass bottles but he hated the bubbliness of soda and alcohol was disgusting without the appeal that if he acquired the taste he’d get drunk. Consuming gallons of alcohol only gave demons a slight buzz and Sirius wasn’t interested in more than a few sips.

 

He and Remus fought almost constantly sometimes. On the upside, James called them the most strangely healthy couple because it meant they constantly communicated. They found resolutions on Sirius being too codependent on Remus, on Remus being too dependent health-wise on Sirius and James, on Sirius needing to own up to his issues and start therapy, on how to set boundaries of privacy and how to reassure both their insecurities of being unlovable, and on how sometimes you just don’t ask—whether it’s why Sirius needed a few days to be in nothingness or Remus talking to something imaginary.

 

Sirius even started going to the Unusual Experiences group (Remus still refused group therapy settings). It was fantastic with the broad range of disorders the ten other people who came to it had. He didn’t say anything the first meeting or the second or the third. Then, someone with Dissociative Identity Disorder spoke up and Sirius researched the hell out of it. James said it was a bit sketchy, what Sirius was doing, but Remus reassured him that Sirius needed this and if this was the only way, then so be it.

 

So...Sirius acted as if he had something similar to a dissociative disorder and asked for everyone to treat him as his alter, a sleep demon who cursed his lover with nightmares.

 

It was horribly shitty to fake a mental illness but it gave Sirius the opportunity to speak freely about his worries without getting in trouble for revealing his identity. For his therapist, he discussed PTSD and dissociation, not going into details but vaguely implying he had a cult-like childhood where he was forced to do bad things to good people.

 

“I’m really proud of you,” Lily said offhandedly a few weeks after Sirius started working on his issues. To Lily’s alarm, Sirius cried fully for the first time, which came in as a close second after pooping for traumatic human things to experience. His eyes _fucking leaked._

 

_Terrible._

 

_Horrible._

 

_Dumb humans._

 

James and Remus printed out a fake certificate for Sirius being an “Official Passable Human” and Sirius cried a second time, hiding in the bathroom. James and Remus barged in when they realized he wasn’t peeing, tackling Sirius into a squishy hug and documenting his tears on Snapchat.

 

Sirius had become so present in his human body that he burped, experienced cold and hot temperature change, felt pain when stubbing a toe, farted, grew hungry or thirsty, and took up modern human culture. He owned a phone that he used rarely except for its Apps—he _loved_ and _loathed_ Fun Ways To Die. He sang obnoxious pop songs in Remus’ face when Remus withdrew into himself too much and he moonwalked like a fucking pro. One time he even rollerskated, but he also ran over a toddler.

 

Remus took his medications consistently, though he had to be bullied into sleep meds more often than not. They still cycled through different medications, trying to perfect a “cocktail” of pills and it threw Remus in constant loops with unfortunate physical and mental side effects. For every new medication change, James always sang _Doses and Mimosas._ Sirius got in trouble for throwing Zoloft out the window—a metaphorical demon of a pill that endorsed full-on insomnia and cranked up irritability. Currently, Remus was between therapists and Sirius trusted him when he said he needed a break from talking through his issues. They started looking at alternatives to medication and Remus tentatively showed interest in Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, which was unfortunately very expensive, health insurance only covering for the treatment for depression and not bipolar. (James and Sirius were secretly plotting ways to get Remus to accept James paying for it).

 

Sirius wished for metaphorical duct tape to help in the meantime—taping his own cracks or having Remus help tape his cracks or helping tape Remus’ cracks or helping tape each other together as a unit. But they were making do with how things were.

 

They were stupid fucking miserable happy pieces of shit that for the most part tried their best and they loved the absolute motherfucking shit out of each other.

 

“Good day,” Sirius answered.

 

Remus’ sleeping pills had hit, he jittered his legs and slurred his words sleepily. “Mm. My Sirius.”

 

Sirius allowed the human emotion of content to flow through him, holding his guilt and not feeding into it as he released his dark energy into his punished human—his punished human, Lupin, Remus, his boyfriend, his love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank for reading! I put this down as a series in case I write little one-shots in the future and people are interested in subscribing to that. Just little ideas on Peter using the favor Sirius promised him, why James is The Mimic, Remus' POV, Sirius dressing up as Loki for Halloween, and other shenanigans.
> 
> important note: Sirius continues to do little cute sticky notes for the rest of the rest of their lives
> 
>  
> 
> you can follow me on tumblr here [siriuslysarcasticremus](https://siriuslysarcasticremus.tumblr.com/)

**Author's Note:**

> you can follow me on tumblr here [siriuslysarcasticremus](https://siriuslysarcasticremus.tumblr.com/)


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